SIGROLE 2012

Osnat Bar-On	“If you are not in favour, you are opposed :” Franck Pavloff’s Brown Morning and democratic awareness in the heterogeneous classroom
Wai Ming Cheung	When the Writers Met the Illustrators: Promoting Literature Experience for All Children
Henk de Lange	LITERATURE: MIRROR AND LAMP, Literature as a tool for critical adolescents
Andy Goodwyn	Literary reading from a Darwinian perspective; escaping nationalism.
Andy Goodwyn	Mother tongue teachers and E-readers; attitudes, feelings and opportunities.
Aslaug Fodstad Gourvennec	Literary education – a transition between everyday language and academic literacy
Rahel halabe	Hebrew Childrens Literature and the Adult Learner of Hebrew as a Second / Foreign Language Hebrew Childrens Literature and the Adult Learner of Hebrew as a Second / Foreign Language Hebrew Children's Literature & the Adult Learner of Hebrew as a Second/Foreign Language
Tanja Janssen	Using think-aloud methodology in literary reading research (and classroom practice)
Wai Ip joseph Lam	Narrative analysis on Picture Books written by South Asian minority students in Hong Kong
Lilach Naishtat Bornstein	The Wisdom of the Group: Barefoot Interpreting of a Poem
Smaragda Papadopoulou	Fairy tales and teaching language in multicultural schools
Irene Pieper	The role of literature within plurilingual and intercultural education: literature and discursive competences
Yael Poyas	The story I’m reading – The story the other is reading
Florentine Samahaian	Workshop on the LiFT-2 Project: Literature Framework for Teachers in Secondary Education
Shek Kam Tse	The Effects of Watching Television and Programme Subtitles on Hong Kong Students’ Reading Standards in English and Chinese Literature
Wiebke von Bernstorff	How to combine intercultural education with the teaching of intercultural literature
Wing Yee Wong	Enhancing Reading Ability of non-Chinese Speaking Students Using Fairy Tale in Literacy Learning

Osnat Bar-On (Israel)
€œIF YOU ARE NOT IN FAVOUR, YOU ARE OPPOSED :€ FRANCK PAVLOFF€™S BROWN MORNING AND DEMOCRATIC AWARENESS IN THE HETEROGENEOUS CLASSROOM

“If you are not in favour, you are opposed :” Franck Pavloff’s Brown Morning and democratic awareness in the heterogeneous classroom

Franck Pavloff’s Brown Morning facilitates the development of critical thinking and democratic awareness in the heterogeneous classroom. The allegorical nature of the work encourages students to engage with the nuances of a complex literary text while identifying potential parallels between the fictional situation and their own lives and society. The study of Brown Morning fosters the cognitive thinking skills of formulating thought-provoking questions and answering them inductively through the close analysis of textual evidence. Students practice debating social issues though parables and learn to understand how literature uses animalization and coded criticism to comment on real-life situations.
Pavloff wrote Brown Morning in France in 2001, during the period leading to the presidential campaign between Jacques Chirac and the right-wing Jean Marie Le-Pen. Narrated in a minimalistic, non-judgemental tone, this brief dystopian novel presents a mesmerizing allegorical description of how citizens allow a totalitarian regime to take over their lives. By describing the treatment of cats and dogs, Brown Morning depicts the gradual ascendance of a horrific regime. In Israel, Brown Morning is a part of the literature curriculum in junior high schools within an interdisciplinary learning circle formed around the themes of the individual under totalitarianism, individualism versus conformism, and democratic versus non-democratic regimes. In citizenship classes Brown Morning is taught in order to help students recognize non-democratic phenomena. Brown Morning is well suited for the heterogeneous classroom because its allegorical nature encourages readers to reflect on their own experiences in light of events that take place outside of a specific place or time. The students’ attention to the text deepens their awareness of their own psychology and socio-political reality, thus facilitating fruitful discussions in which every student potentially has a voice in the interpretative community.
The apparent simplicity of the plot of Brown Morning is effective in engaging the attention of the students: two friends in an unspecified country are suddenly informed that it is no longer permissible to own any dogs, and later any cats, that are not brown. The friends receive the decrees and the disappearance of non-brown animals with only minor discomfort. The daily newspaper is subsequently closed because of its interest in other colors, and books are removed from library shelves. The friends adjust to the new reality, oblivious to its threats and focusing instead on their livelihood and other daily concerns. Pavloff’s characters, ordinary people potentially representing every human being, undergo psychological adjustment, rationalization, self-delusion and repression—but finally, but too late, experience moral awakening. Through their study of Pavloff’s text, students develop the awareness that “brownness” remains a threat for every society and that they must avoid the moral indifference of the literary characters.





Wai Ming Cheung (Hong Kong)
WHEN THE WRITERS MET THE ILLUSTRATORS: PROMOTING LITERATURE EXPERIENCE FOR ALL CHILDREN

Wai Ming CHEUNG, PhD., Assistant Professor
Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Email address: ming338@gmail.com

Abstract

Context: Spoken by one-fifth of the world’s population, Chinese is the most widely used language in the world (Li, Tan, Bates & Tzeng, 2006). The languages spoken by non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students in Hong Kong are mainly Urdu, Hindi, Tagalog, Nepali and English (Hong Kong Education Bureau, 2008). Chinese is the dominant native language in Hong Kong, therefore learning Chinese as a second language is essential to minimize marginalization. NCS students rarely have the interest to read or learn Chinese mainly because they think Chinese is a language too difficult to learn as Chinese uses logograms and represents meaning more than phonology (Ku, Chan & Sandhu, 2005; Tse & Cheung, 2010). Previous studies of second language acquisition have focused on oral ability, whilst reading and writing abilities were seldom emphasized (García & Pica, 2000). However, as a means to communicate in the local context, the literacy development of NCS students in Chinese should not be neglected. Second language reading might also be hindered when students lack the oral vocabulary to match the order of graphemes they see (Shiotsu, 2009).There is a significant relationship between working memory for reading and writing in the second language (Abu-Rabia, 2003). On the other hand, although the local fourth-grade students have laid a solid foundation of Chinese language as it is their mother language, students always lack a sense of readership when they write Chinese composition. This study aimed at bringing a sense of readership and enhancing the understanding and appreciation of literature in Chinese without losing the fun of reading it by linking up these two groups of students.

Method: Twenty-seven eighth-grade South Asian girls aged 13 from a NCS girl’s college and 129 fourth-grade Chinese students aged 9 from a primary school in Hong Kong were recruited to join the empirical study for 4 months. Core literature (Cox & Zarillo, 1993) was selected by teachers for both groups to provide a rich foundation in the best of children’s literature. The program was implemented through reading aloud to students and intensive instruction in skills and strategies for L1 and NCS learners. The teachers of the primary schools conducted writing workshops for the fourth-grade students and students were asked to write an adventure of the main characters. This gave fourth-grade students opportunities to make connections between events in their lives and what was happening to the characters in the book. They felt serious and excited about themselves as the writers to provide stories for the NCS learners to draw pictures. Three best pieces of writing were chosen from a total of 129 students’ work according to the idea units, total word numbers and creativity of the writing. Teachers conducted a reading buddies program between these groups by inviting the NCS students to draw the illustrations for the three best pieces of adventurous stories. As they read aesthetically, the eighth-grade students tried to picture the story in their minds. They put their imagined scenes, actions and characters into illustrations. The adventurous stories with illustrations were printed out in form of big picture books. The NCS illustrators from the college met the local writers in the primary school. The illustrators shared the big books with 129 fourth-grade students in Chinese. Students were given opportunities to read and discuss with their buddies in groups. The literature was shared, modeled, demonstrated, and practiced in a meaningful context.

Result & Discussion: Assessment was conducted through observation, interviews, and examination of samples of children’s work. The reading buddies program resulted in a deeper level of involvement for students in Chinese reading and writing. This program also showed that the use of core literature would also build a community of learners (Ford, 1994; Tierney & Pearson, 1998). It gave students from diverse cultural background a common experience, thereby providing the groups with common ground for conversations. It would also boost the self-esteem of the poorer readers in the NCS group.

References

Abu-Rabia, S. (2003). The influence of working memory on reading and creative writing processes in a second language. Educational Psychology, 23, 209-222.
Baumann, J.F., & Ivey, G. (1997). Delicate balances: Striving for curricular and instructional equilibrium in a second-grade, literature/ strategy-based classroom. Reading Research Quarterly, 32, 244-275.
Cox, C., & Zarillo, J. (1993). Teaching reading with children’s literature. New York: Merrill.
Ford, M.P. (1994). Keys to successful whole group instruction. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Connecticut Reading Association, Waterbury.
García, M.M.P., Pica, T. (2000). Interaction among proficient learners: Are input, feedback and output needs addressed in a foreign language context. Studia Lunguistica, 54, 272-279.
Hong Kong Education Bureau. (2008). Consultation Paper on Developing a Supplementary Guide to the Chinese Language Curriculum for Non-Chinese Speaking Students. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Government.
Ku, H.B., Chan, K.M., Chan, W.L., and Sandhu, K.K. (2005). Education of South Asian ethnic minority groups in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Centre for Social Policy Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Li, P., Tan, L. H., Bates, E., & Tzeng, O. J. L. (2006). Introduction: New frontiers in Chinese psycholinguistics. In P. Li, L. H. Tan, E. Bates, & O. J. L. Tzeng (Eds.), The handbook of East Asian psycholinguistics (pp. 1–9). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shiotsu, T. (2009). Reading ability and components of word recognition speed: The case of L1-Japanese EFL Learners. In Z. H. Han & N. J. Anderson (Eds.) Second Language Reading Research and Instruction: Crossing the Boundaries. USA: The University of Michigan Press.
Tierney, R.J. & Pearson, D. (1998). A revisionist perspective on “Learning to learn from text: A framework for improving classroom practice.” In J.E. Readence, T.W. Bean, & R.S. Baldwin (Eds.), Content area literacy: An integrated approach, pp.82-85. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/ Hunt.


Henk de Lange (Netherlands (the))
LITERATURE: MIRROR AND LAMP, LITERATURE AS A TOOL FOR CRITICAL ADOLESCENTS

PROPOSAL FOR ABSTRACT IAIMTE 2012

Henk de Lange (H.de.Lange@Windesheim.nl)
Wipstrikkerallee 120
8023 DM Zwolle
Netherlands
0031384545497



LITERATURE: MIRROR AND LAMP
Literature as a tool for critical adolescents

In his study ˜Becoming a reader" J.A. Appleyard argues that there is a regular sequence of attitudes, we go through as we mature, which affect how we experience fiction. In his view young adolescents are the critical seekers of truth. Fictional characters and patrons may give a voice to the feeling and thinking about the world of sound and fury young people are eager to conquer. It is this category of readers, in age varying from 17 to 21, that is the focus of my research in one of the lectorates in Windesheim Vocational University, Zwolle, Netherlands. For four years I have been developing consciousness raising techniques for undergraduates who, as part of a minor called philosophy of life, learn to use (world) literature as ˜mirror and lamp" for the construction of their personal and vocational life. Since their major study is not literature, their study being economics, health, history and so on, they are not particularly interested in literature. For this reason techniques I have been experimenting with could apply mutatis mutandis to students of secondary education in their final stage. I want to demonstrate a close to life model for analysing literature developed, revised and evaluated by my students. In this model I distinguish an inward movement and an outward movement, the latter concentrating on identification, emotion and katalepsis, the former concentrating on empathy and new insights. In addition I pay attention to the effects of clarifying literature by means of amplification techniques and archetypal structuring of literary texts.

Note: For financial reasons participation and registration depends of whether my abstract is accepted. As soon as my abstract will be accepted, Windesheim Vocational University will take care of the registration fees.


Andy Goodwyn (United Kingdom (The))
LITERARY READING FROM A DARWINIAN PERSPECTIVE; ESCAPING NATIONALISM.



Empirical studies of literary reading have begun to accumulate over the last 25 years although the 'Scientific Study' of literature is still very new. This paper will explore some of these findings but also review recent developments in 'Literary Darwinism' and their implications for teaching literature in schools. The paper will draw on several small scale studies [with teacher sad n with students] to provide some evidence for the theory that literature is a specialised form of knowledge and may be considered an outcome of the 'adaptive mind'. This theoretical stance provides a very different justification for ensuring that students have an experience of literary reading and develop some understanding of the way that literature provides a very special set of resources that support an enhanced understanding of human motivation and behaviour. In this way literature, which is often conceptualised and justified in the curriculum, as a nationalistic project [especially in secondary schools], can be seen as part of a way to help students understand that literature is, in fact, a universalist project but one that is inflected, sometimes dominated, by notions of national identity and survival.



Andy Goodwyn (United Kingdom (The))
MOTHER TONGUE TEACHERS AND E-READERS; ATTITUDES, FEELINGS AND OPPORTUNITIES.

Teachers of literature are very fixated on ‘the book’, its materiality, its ‘feel’, even its smell. They have often expressed reservations about the way new technologies may threaten the life of the book, especially literary texts. However, the relatively new ‘E-readers’ which adopt many book like features, may provide a new set of opportunities for readers and teachers. Could it be that e-readers provide a way forward to offering a really positive literary reading experience to far more students from a range of backgrounds and cultures?
This paper reports on a study of mother tongue teachers in England and their views of E-Readers [e.g. The Kindle]. The project electronically surveyed a large number of teachers [120 returns] and then followed up with telephone interviews [25]. It seems that the majority of these English teachers are excited by the potential of E-reading and consider that it may well be an excellent device for broadening the appeal of literature to a range of diverse students. They are also excited by the way these devices are changing and enhancing their own reading experiences. They are curious to experiment with these devices in the classroom and to explore their potential for student readers



Aslaug Fodstad Gourvennec (Norway)
LITERARY EDUCATION €“ A TRANSITION BETWEEN EVERYDAY LANGUAGE AND ACADEMIC LITERACY

In 2006 a new curriculum was implemented in Norwegian school. The curriculum has been characterized as a “literacy reform” (Berg 2005). The ideals of the reform represent an awareness of academic language in general – both spoken and written – and a corresponding awareness of domain specific discourses. This way of reasoning suggests a developmental line from elementary school to higher education, and emphasises the gap between the general and the highly specialised forms of knowledge. Development in this sense is a matter of gaining familiarity with different ways with words.

In this study, we address ways with words in literature education. The study takes as starting point the significance of a more capable peer as a model, and explores the domain specific practices amongst teachers and high-achieving students in last year of upper secondary school (17-18 years old). The material of the study consists of recordings of literary group discussions, oral summaries of these conversations, as well as individually written interpretative summaries, logged with a key-logging tool. In the paper, we will present and discuss the overall design of the study and some results based on early stage data collection among teachers, considered as experts in the domain. We will focus particularly on distribution of and transitions between everyday and academic discourse in the group discussions and in the individual written texts. Examining the characteristics of discourse at a high-achieving level may bring on models of domain specific practices with consequences for literature education in upper secondary school.

Presented by:
Aslaug Fodstad Gourvennec, University of Stavanger, National Centre for Reading Education and Research, 4036 Stavanger, NORWAY

Atle Skaftun, University of Stavanger, National Centre for Reading Education and Research, 4036 Stavanger, NORWAY

Per Henning Uppstad, University of Stavanger, National Centre for Reading Education and Research, 4036 Stavanger, NORWAY


Rahel halabe (Canada)
HEBREW CHILDRENS LITERATURE AND THE ADULT LEARNER OF HEBREW AS A SECOND / FOREIGN LANGUAGE HEBREW CHILDRENS LITERATURE AND THE ADULT LEARNER OF HEBREW AS A SECOND / FOREIGN LANGUAGE HEBREW CHILDREN'S LITERATURE & THE ADULT LEARNER OF HEBREW AS A SECOND/FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Teaching L2 to adults starts by the pragmatic everyday language. It integrates the most frequently used vocabulary and grammar in order to give the student an optimal mix of the simple with the practical. Language that describes feelings and thoughts is postponed to later stages. Similarly postponed are students' opportunities to enjoy valuable works of literature. Also, students have to wait long before they encounter subjects that have a more thoughtful depth than just dealing with day to day practicalities.
This paper suggests integrating children's literature into the curriculum of the adult Beginners' and Low Intermediate levels as done in the Vancouver Mini Ulpan. Even though stories used were not originally written for teaching purposes, or for adults, they can provide the students with a pleasurable, even thought provoking, support for their learning of frequent vocabulary and grammar. Through them, students can learn effective strategies for listening and reading with comprehension. They can also begin to express feelings and opinions, albeit in a simple manner. Moreover, much of this authentic material, even when adapted, contains a significant cultural component and could open a window into the culture of the language in which these adult students are taking their first steps.
http://cms.education.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/A3414EED-513E-4AEA-8013-6A4FDE299499/96084/ShafrutYeladim5.pdf



Tanja Janssen (Netherlands (the))
USING THINK-ALOUD METHODOLOGY IN LITERARY READING RESEARCH (AND CLASSROOM PRACTICE)

Thinking aloud (TA) has frequently been used in studies of how expert and novice literature readers respond to complex literary texts. It can also be used to compare readers with different cultural backgrounds.
In this workshop, I will demonstrate and discuss with participants how TA-methodology can be applied in literary reading research. After a short explanation of the nature and origins of TA as a research method, a few video´s and protocols of adolescent readers (reading a literary story under think aloud conditions) will be presented and discussed. Questions that are addressed are: What kind of insights into the reading process does thinking aloud provide? What are limitations? How can sessions and protocols be analyzed, both quantitatively and qualitatively? Can thinking aloud during reading also be applied as an instructional method in the literature classroom?



Wai Ip joseph Lam (China)
NARRATIVE ANALYSIS ON PICTURE BOOKS WRITTEN BY SOUTH ASIAN MINORITY STUDENTS IN HONG KONG

The majority population in Hong Kong is Chinese. According to the population census in 2006, around 5% of the 7 million population, i.e. over 340,000 are South Asian minorities, with around 12,000 students. They are immigrants or second generation immigrants mainly from Pakistan, Nepal and India. Their difficulties in learning Chinese have become a serious obstacle to further their studies, career, and their immersion into Hong Kong society. According to the 'Education for all: Report on the Working Group on Education for Ethnic Minorities' reported by the Equal Opportunities Commission in Hong Kong in 2011. While it would be rare that an EM (ethnic minority) child is refused admission to an educational establishment on the ground of his race, it is more often that he is rejected due to his lesser proficiency in Chinese as compared with other Chinese speaking competitors. The Chinese proficiency requirement, if unjustly administered by individual schools, may amount to indirect discrimination under the RDO (Race Discrimination Ordinance)(p.8).

Centre for Advancement of Chinese Language Education and Research of Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong has launched University-School Support Programme: Supporting Secondary Schools in the Teaching and Learning of Chinese for non-native Learners funded by the Hong Kong Government since 2008 to provide professional support to secondary schools on the learning and teaching of Chinese for ethnic minority students who are from non-Chinese speaking (NCS) families, particularly, to develop classroom pedagogy to help ethnic minority students to learn Chinese more effectively. One of the items of the programme was Picture Book reading and writing award scheme conducted in designated secondary schools for non-Chinese speaking students. The scheme provided support for teaching South Asian minority students in creative writing and developed learning material for teaching South Asian minority students literary reading in multicultural context in Hong Kong at the same time. Through writing Picture Books, South Asian minority students created writing on imagination of their relationship with Hong Kong and their complicated experience of identifying themselves as HongKonger.

This study aims at using narrative analysis to analyze and interpret language, plots and themes of Picture Books written by South Asian minority students under the Picture Book scheme. The study adopts concept of extemalizing problem in light of narrative therapy approach to explore how South Asian minority students face their (post-) immigrant situation in figuring out their identify issue as HongKonger. The study investigates immigrant experience of South Asian minority students and develops narrative therapy approach in narrative analysis.

References

Centre for Advancement of Chinese Language Education and Research. (2010). Experimental Picture book reading and writing. Retrieved 14 February 2012, from http://www.dragonwise.hku.hk/usp/pictureBook/fileShare/.

Curriculum Development Council. (2008). Chinese Language Education Key Learning Area: Supplementary Guide to the Chinese Language Curriculum for Non-Chinese Speaking Students. Hong Kong: Curriculum Development Council. Retrieved 14 February 2012, from http://www.edb.gov.hk/FileManager/TC/Content_2810/sg%20to%20chi%20lang%20curr%20ncs%20proper%20eng%20upload.pdf
Education Bureau, The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. (2010). University-School Support Programme: Supporting Secondary Schools in the Teaching and Learning of Chinese for Non-native Learners. Retrieved 14 February 2012, from http://www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?nodeID=6744&langno=1.

Equal Opportunities Commission. (2011). Education for all: Report on the Working Group on Education for Ethnic Minorities. Hong Kong: Equal Opportunities Commission. Retrieved 14 Feburary 2012, from http://www.eoc.org.hk/EOC/Upload/UserFiles/File/EducationReportE.pdf


Lilach Naishtat Bornstein (Israel)
THE WISDOM OF THE GROUP: BAREFOOT INTERPRETING OF A POEM

"Poetry gives most pleasure when only generally and not perfectly understood" (S.T. Coleridge). And indeed, the hundreds of interpretations written about his Christabel since its publication in 1816 do not provide a perfect understanding of it. If it is true, as well, that a poem's literary value may be gauged by its "untranslatableness in words of the same language" (ibid), perhaps it is not so surprising that a group of Israeli female lay readers, in discussing a Hebrew translation of this fragment, offered significant insights into it.
Naishtat-Bornstein, a literary scholar and an activist, had created the first translation into Hebrew of Christabel (Even Hoshen 2011). During the workshop she will present her journey in the footsteps of the poem; the change she went through-- from a professional literary scholar to a 'barefoot reader'; the popular reading group in which she participated and for whose benefit she created the translation and the interpretation that this group wove around this poem. The participants of the workshop will be invited to experience 'barefoot' interpreting, examine various options for translating, and devise creative solutions for translating segments of text from Christabel, that originally exposes the tension between the comprehensibility and the incomprehensibility.




Smaragda Papadopoulou (Greece)
FAIRY TALES AND TEACHING LANGUAGE IN MULTICULTURAL SCHOOLS

For a long time, fairy tales were connected with the younger ages. Today’s young adults seem to continue to relate with fairy tales through new narratives which incorporate fairy tale elements into the modern world. In today’s young adult literature, these elements include the truly diachronic and archetypal such as the hero’s journey as well as remnants of a mindset that has long been discarded yet remains strong through societal conditioning, Fairy tales are a creative teaching tool in multilingual and a multi cultural classroom A study through the most acclaimed of the young adult titles that are dominated by fairy tales, would allow us to examine the options that teachers choose in order to teach language, face diversity and focus on students’ global identity Such a literary situation would approach both the books and the teaching methods of using fairy tales in multicultural settings. Bibliotherapy, role play, dialogues and creative storytelling are examined in teaching and learning strategies. This study would allow us to discern the fairy tale patterns that are most relevant to teaching literature and uncover the heterogeneous fairy tale components that remain diachronic to today’s social and personal problems of the students.


Irene Pieper (Germany)
THE ROLE OF LITERATURE WITHIN PLURILINGUAL AND INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION: LITERATURE AND DISCURSIVE COMPETENCES

In an ongoing project the Council of Europe is developing a platform of resources for plurilingual and intercultural education. This project spells out the transversal notion of language in all education and aims at providing tools for curriculum design and education to make sure that the rights of all learners to quality education are taken into account. Literature is acknowledged as an important part of plurilingual and intercultural education and namely its potential to allow for experiences with the creative, aesthetic and ludic use of language as well as for encounters with culture(s) and for the development of an intercultural openness is clearly acknowledged.
The workshop will present this project and namely the study on literature (Pieper 2011). I will argue that the potential of literature education with regard to the development of discursive competences should be focused upon. We will then engage in a literary dialogue on a piece of short prose taken from world literature (probably Kafka) and discuss this learning scenario in the frame of the plenitude of competences involved and will also look at the presuppositions of a successful arrangement.

References:
Council of Europe: Platform of resources and references for plurilingual and intercultural education. http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/langeduc/boxb-learner_en.asp
Pieper, Irene (2011): Items for a description of linguistic competence in the language of schooling necessary for teaching/learning literature (at the end of compulsory education). An approach with reference points. Strasbourg: Council of Europe (Language Policy Division). http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/langeduc/BoxD2-OtherSub_en.asp#s4



Yael Poyas (Israel)
THE STORY I€™M READING €“ THE STORY THE OTHER IS READING

The story I 'm reading, the story the other is reading

Proposal for a round table
Yael Poyas & Ilana Elkad-Lehman

Our aim is to generate a discussion of literary reading processes in a multi-cultural society, which is challenged by a constant, deep conflict: The case of Israel.
Our two studies were carried out in two academic M.Ed. programs in Israel and focused on courses offering joint readings of different literary pieces, some of which deal with the Israeli Jewish-Arabic conflict.
The researched groups (n1=7; 1 Arab, 6 Jews. n2=14; 3 Arabs, 14 Jews) read texts which confronted the teachers with their former knowledge regarding the Jewish/ Arab conflict, and their stances towards it.
The data were teachers' written responses and assignments, documented discussions from the groups' meetings and interviews with some of the teachers. Analysis was performed in order to (a) identify participants' stories and unique voices, and (b) characterize the stories and story-tellers.
The findings will be described from the point of view of a college lecturer and that of graduate students. Findings regarding the tension between the overt and covert, participation and avoidance in a literary discourse taking place in an academic context within a conflict-filled society will be presented. The term reading ˜minor literature" will be suggested as a natural continuation of the term writing "minor literature" (Deleuze, & Guattari, 1986). This will lead to a discussion of similar teaching situations in similar geographical and political spaces.

References
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1986). Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature. Trans. Dana Polan. Theory and History of Literature 30. Minneapolis and London.



Florentine Samahaian (Romania)
WORKSHOP ON THE LIFT-2 PROJECT: LITERATURE FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHERS IN SECONDARY EDUCATION

Argument for the workshop
In the context of globalization, teaching literature is challenged in many ways. Having in view one of the topics of the Seminar regarding the curricular decisions worldwide - the selection of canonic and contemporary literature, national and international literature, local or pupular and ethnic literature - , we want to present to the participants the European project LIFT 2, which aims at finding some answers for literature teachers who are confronted with differences in their classrooms.
Which literary texts are able to stimulate student literary development, under which circumstances – these are key questions in literature teaching and especially in the multilingual and multicultural context, where the differences of the students’ interests and reading abilities are to be valued.
The general aim of the LIFT-2 project is to create a framework for the development of literary competence within the context of literature teaching in secondary education. Taking into account that observing, labelling and classifying the differences between students is crucial for an effective teaching, the project intends to match three dimensions: students characteristics, books and didactics. This means that for fostering the students’ literary development teachers have to propose books that fit a certain level of students’ interests and reading abilities and to organise teaching and learning activities that stimulate the students to make a progress in their reading competences.

The objectives of the workshop are:
- to give a synthetical description of the European project LIFT-2, with a focus on the instruments developed by now
- to stimulate the reflection of the participants on the benefitis and limits of the project
- to obtain a valuable feedback from the participants regarding the instruments of the project that could still be refined

Contents:
The aims and objectives of the LIFT 2 project
The theory the project is based on
The steps of the project
The main instruments of the project and the way they can be used
Strong and weak points of the project instruments

Strategies: presentation, group work, discussions

Materials needed: projector, hand-outs, flipchart and materials for posters

Description of activities:

Activity 1 (20 minutes) – powerpoint presentation
Presentation of the LIFT 2 project, having in view: the aims and objectives of the project, the three dimensions of the framework (students, books and didactics), the pedagogical-didactical approaches to modelling progression with the reading competency, the steps of the project and the state of the art in the research, the main instruments of the project and how they are supposed to be used.

Activity 2 (30 minutes) – group work (3-4 persons in a group)
- Each group will receive handouts with a short prose text from the European literature. They will also receive handouts with a quick scan format. They will receive the task to evaluate and rate the piece of prose, using the quick scan. (20 minutes)
- We shall discuss together their decisions and compare their arguments, concluding about the benefits and shortcomings of using the quick scan. During the discussions a poster of the conclusions will be done by one of the presenters. (10 minutes)

Activity 3 (30 minutes) – group work (the same groups)
- Each group will receive handouts. The groups will receive handouts with the transitions from the level they chose for the text to a higher level. The transition suggestions reffer both to students and the book. They will test the transition suggestions for the books they rated before for a certain level: are these suggestions fit for developing the readers’ competencies or not? (20 min.)
- We shall discuss together their answers and arguments, concluding about the benefits and shortcomings of using the transitions suggestions. During the discussions a poster of the conclusions will be done by one of the presenters. (10 minutes)

Evaluation:
Discution on the following points:
- Would you like to inform your colleagues or your students about the project LIFT 2? Why yes or no?
- Would you try to apply or adapt the instruments of project LIFT in your activity? Can you be specific about that?




Shek Kam Tse (Hong Kong)
THE EFFECTS OF WATCHING TELEVISION AND PROGRAMME SUBTITLES ON HONG KONG STUDENTS€™ READING STANDARDS IN ENGLISH AND CHINESE LITERATURE

The standardised reading scores of literature in Chinese, the first language, and in English, the second language, were carefully collected from 1,202 Primary Four students in Hong Kong. The students also supplied evidence via questionnaires about how much time they watched television (TV) programmes each day, the types of programme they preferred to watch and whether or not they paid attention to subtitles. There was a closer association between the students' English reading comprehension in literature and the time spent watching English-media TV than between their standard of reading Chinese literature and the time they spent watching Chinese-media TV. Variance analyses and regression analyses were executed in order to establish which kinds of programme had the greatest impact on reading comprehension scores of literature in the two languages. Interpretation of the trends was complicated by the fact that the Hong Kong students' mother tongue, Cantonese, differs in terms of syntax and form from the Modern Standard Chinese (MSC) taught in schools. The written language they are taught in school (MSC) matches Putonghua, the official language spoken across China, rather than Cantonese.
As reported in other studies, students who watch TV for a purpose rather than indiscriminately for over three hours per day had higher reading scores in literature. The best readers made better use of the subtitles to aid understanding than students who usually skipped over subtitles. The latter students had lower levels of reading competence both in Chinese and in English. As to the effect on later reading comprehension of watching different types of Chinese programme, the two regression models for Chinese scores, for instance, news and informational programme had positive effects on children's subsequent Chinese reading comprehension. In contrast, programmes produced for light entertainment, such as entertainment news and sports programmes were associated with negative effects. While in the case of English programmes, attending to informational programmes (news and informational programmes) had a positive and significant association with subsequent reading comprehension ability. In contrast, light entertainment programmes, such as entertainment news and children's TV shows, had little or even a negative effect. It is interesting to note that the effect of attending to English programs (the L2) seemed to be larger than those in Chinese programs, the mother tongue, on subsequent reading attainment. The implications for parents are discussed.


Wiebke von Bernstorff (Germany)
HOW TO COMBINE INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION WITH THE TEACHING OF INTERCULTURAL LITERATURE

Thinking about an intercultural education in the frame of literature education, there are a lot of connections between both themes on hand. First of all both are grounded on a reflection of language and especially communicative skills and performances. Intercultural education cannot achieve its goals without working on self-confidence and with real emotions, which are the motives behind prejudices. In literature education teachers and pupils also deal with emotions as present in the texts and textual clues that provoke emotional reactions. This seems to be the perfect link for combining both approaches for the goal of intercultural learning on a strong basis and a wide range of possibilities to gain self-confidence in intercultural settings.
But coming to practice exactly this link seems to be the most difficult task. How can we combine the goals of intercultural education with the goals of literature education? Or more specific: which goals of literature education can help to develop intercultural competences? Is it only the knowledge, which is transported through literature, or is it more? Immigrant literature with its typical reflection on languages and problems of intercultural situations seem to be a perfect topic for intercultural education. But teaching immigrant literature can also stabilize prejudices and does not necessarily help to reduce them. This can happen especially if literature education only focuses on themes rather than on aesthetics or the relation between form and content. Literature education comes to the point, where it aims on understanding foreign perspectives and on perspective-taking over. Also the tolerance for ambiguity is something one can learn through working with a text, which irritates its readers on the first sight.
The proposed presentation shall focus on this problem and show a few approaches how to deal with the combination of intercultural learning and literary education. Emine Sevgi Ãzdamars autobiographical fiction (Die Bracke vom goldenen Horn) and Rafik Schamis novel The Dark side of love can function as a source for reflecting possibilities of intercultural learning in this setting. The two German immigrant authors show two different types of immigrant/intercultural literature. Ãzdamar, who came 1965 as a "Gastarbeiter" from Turkey to Germany and is today a well known actress and author, reflects in her prose not only on language in intercultural situations, but also on foreign language learning and intercultural conflicts. Her literary aesthetics are genuinely intercultural. Schami, who came 1971 from Syria to Germany, on the other hand opens the world of the Libanon and the Orient to the German readers. He is literally spoken a "translator" of oriental traditions into the German language.
I propose a demonstration of 2 to 3 tools from intercultural trainings, which can help to develop an intercultural awareness of ones own and so prepare for the reading of immigrant literature. Afterwards there shall be suggestions, how to connect these tools with the literary education task. On Ãzdamars and Schamis prose we shall discuss the possibilities and problems of this connection.



Wing Yee Wong (Hong Kong)
ENHANCING READING ABILITY OF NON-CHINESE SPEAKING STUDENTS USING FAIRY TALE IN LITERACY LEARNING

Wing Yee WONG, MPhil candidate
Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Email address: samanwong@gmail.com

Wai Ming CHEUNG, PhD., Assistant Professor
Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Email address: ming338@gmail.com

Abstract

Purpose:
Ethnic minorities constitute 5% of the Hong Kong population (Census and Statistics Department, 2007). Learning Chinese as a second language (L2) and the requirement for tertiary education in Hong Kong remains controversial in the society. Insufficient knowledge about the needs of non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students and effective pedagogy on teaching Chinese as L2 often lead to low self-efficacy among our teachers and a low-level Chinese curriculum that hinders students' development of Chinese proficiency (Johnston & Hayes, 2008). Moving beyond character acquisition for reading is regarded as a challenge faced by relevant educators. Female NCS students will be investigated in this study, due to the fact that value of girl's learning on L2 is often downplayed by traditional family of ethnic minorities (Beiser & Hou, 2000; Cumming & Gill, 1991; Goldstein, 1995). However, the attitude and interest on L2 learning (Bacon & Finnemann, 1992; Mori & Gobel, 2006) and reading (Logan & Johnston, 2009) were found to be higher for female than male students. This study explores how a popular fairy tale, Cinderella, is employed in literacy learning in a heterogeneous classroom. It is believed that students empowered by educational experience can develop a higher level of confidence and motivation on learning, which as a result leads to academic success (Cummins, 2001). Research questions include how fairy tales and the learning theory of Variation (Marton, 2006) enhance Chinese reading ability of NCS students.
Methodology:
52 NCS female students and 2 Chinese language teachers were recruited in the study. Students were divided into two groups according to different levels of Chinese ability. Learning study, a fusion of lesson study and design experiments, was employed (Marton, 2006) to enhance the reading abilities of L2 learners using fairy tales and integration of diverse cultures (Hudson, 2007; Cummins, 2000). A structured test on character acquisition and reading comprehension was conducted before and after the lesson as pretest and posttest. Six students, three from each group, were selected as case studies for deeper investigation. Individual interview was conducted before and after the lesson to explore any change on students' conception of a fairy tale, their oral and writing ability in producing a narrative story. Students' reflection on learning was also collected by means of their reflection logs. Lesson structure was analyzed using the learning theory of Variation (Marton, 2006) to examine how different patterns of variation enhance students' learning outcomes.
Results and Discussion:
Results in the structured test showed that students improved significantly from the pretest with a t-value of 3.117 (n=52, p<.005). Qualitative analysis on the oral narrative story from pre- and post-lesson interview also showed enhancement on ability to enrich a narrative story. Variation patterns in teaching materials as well as the enacted lessons influence how students learn according to the learning theory of Variation. Though it is perceived as a challenge to educators, Chinese reading might not necessary be a burden but an enjoyment to NCS students. It is proposed that the use of fairy tale and the learning theory of Variation enhance literacy learning of NCS students. More investigation on employing various learning theories onto literacy learning of NCS students is deserved.