ALLS, Vol 5, No 1 (2014)

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714

ISBN: 978-1-291-71811-9

Published by AIAC PTY.LTD.

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Advances in Language and Literary Studies [ALLS] All papers on which this is printed in this book meet the minimum requirements of "Australian International Academic Centre PTY. LTD". All papers published in this book are accessible online. Editors-in-Chief

Amelia Ying Qin, University of Houston, United States Vahid Nimehchisalem, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia

Editorial Assistants Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi Ruzbeh BabaeeJournal Information

ISSN: 2203-4714 ISBN: 978-1-291-71811-9 Website: www.alls.aiac.org.au & http://www.journals.aiac.org.au/index.php/alls/index E-mail: [email protected] Publisher Australian International Academic Centre PTY. LTD. 59/48 Eucalyptus Drive Maidstone, VIC 3012 Australia Phone: +61 3 9028 6880 Website: http://www.aiac.org.au Hardcopy Provider Lulu Press Inc. 3101 Hillsborough Street Raleigh, NC 27607 USA Web: http://www.lulu.com & http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/AIAC

2010 – 2014 © ALLS

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photo print, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher.

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ALLS Editorial Team Editors-in-Chief

Amelia Ying Qin, University of Houston, United States

Vahid Nimehchisalem, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia

Editorial Assistants

Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi

Ruzbeh Babaee

Advisory Board

Andrew Weiler, Holmesglen Institute, Australia

Brian Tomlinson, Leeds Metropolitan University, United Kingdom

John I. Liontas, University of South Florida, United States

Mark Pegrum, The University of Western Australia, Australia

NS Prabhu, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Editorial Board

Ahmar Mahboob, The University of Sydney, Australia

Alex Ho-Cheong Leung, Northumbria University, Newcastle, United Kingdom

Ali Miremadi, California State University, United States

Andrés Canga Alonso, Universidad de La Rioja, Spain

Anthony J. Liddicoat, University of South Australia, Australia

Bakhtiar Naghdipour, Girne American University, Cyprus

Canzhong Wu, Macquarie University, Australia

Chamkaur Singh Gill, Bond University, Australia

Darryl Jones, Trinity College, Ireland

Dat Bao, Monash University, Australia

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Fadil S Elmenfi, Omar Al-Mukhtar University/Derna, Libya

Holi Ibrahim Holi, Rusaq College of Applied Sciences, Oman

I Wayan Arka, Australian National University, Australia

Jason Brown, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Jayakaran Mukundan, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia

Karim Hajhashemi, James Cook University, Australia

Leila Lomashvili, Shawnee State University, United States

Kylie Cardell, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

Mahmoud M Gewaily, Minia University, Egypt

Mohammad Hossein Keshavarz, Near East University, Cyprus

Mohammad Reza Shams, University of Kashan, Iran, Islamic Republic of

Mounir Jilani Ben Zid, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman

Natasha Pourdana, Gyeongju University, Korea, Republic of

Neil Anderson, James Cook University, Australia

Shaofeng Li, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Siamak Babaee, University of Kashan, Iran, Islamic Republic of

Vahed Zarifi, Iran, Islamic Republic of

Wayne DeFehr, University of Alberta, Canada

Wisdom Agorde, University of Alberta, Canada

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Vol 5, No 1 (2014) Table of Contents

Articles What Does Good Language Learner (GLL) Say about Foreign Language Learning? A Story from an Indonesian Learner

Ribut Wahyudi 1-5

Should Humanism Approach Be Applied In English As A Second Language (ESL) Classrooms?

Lee Yi Ling, Ng Yu Jin, Chong Seng Tong, Mohd. Ariff Tarmizi 6-11

Expectations Of Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) Stakeholders On The Ulul Albab Curriculum At A MARA Junior Science College (MRSM)

Umi Kalthom Abdul Manaf, Nurul Fitriah Alias, Ady Hameme Nor Azman, Fadzilah Abdul Rahman, Hafizah Zulkifli

12-20

Classroom Assessment [A Short Communication]

Angela Khristin Brown 21-21

Language Learner Beliefs In An English As A Lingua Franca (ELF) Context

Bakhtiar Naghdipour 22-30

Comparative Analysis of the Concept of Shakespearean Tragedies

Muhammad Aslam Sipra, Muhammad Haseeb Nasir 31-34

Methodological Flaws in Corpus-Based Studies on Malaysian ESL Textbooks

Abdolvahed Zarifi, Jayakaran Mukundan, Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi 35-39

Scaffolding Singaporean Students to Write Vividly in the Chinese ‘Mother Tongue’, Mandarin

Tzemin Chung, Neil Anderson, Munkew Leong, Waiyin Choy 40-52

The Profound Sense of Dissatisfaction: A Comparative Study of Franz Kafka’s A Hunger Artist and Maulana Jalalu-d'-Din Muhammad i Rumi’s A Man of Baghdad

Noorbakhsh Hooti, Mohammad Reza Moradi Borna 53-57

A Brilliant Example for Women—Comments on My Brilliant Career

Xiuqing Zhang 58-61

Teacher's feedback and student's preferences in an Advanced Writing Course: A Case Study

Mohammad Aliakbari, Hossein Raeesi 62-64

A Self-assessment Checklist for Undergraduate Students’ Argumentative Writing

Vahid Nimehchisalem, David Yoong Soon Chye, Sheena Kaur A/P Jaswant Singh, Siti Zaidah Zainuddin, Sara Norouzi, Sheren Khalid

65-80

The Effect of Self, Peer and Teacher Correction on the Pronunciation Improvement of Iranian EFL Learners

Saeideh Ahangari 81-88

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Behavioral Objectives and Standards Movement Revisited

Nima Shakouri, Sepideh Mirzaee 89-94

Civil Disobedience

Angela Khristin Brown 95-98

Individual Self-monitoring &Peer-monitoring In One Classroom in Writing Activities: Who Is at Disadvantage?

Zohreh Zare Toofan 99-111

"Say you want a revolution": A Call for Participatory Approach in EFL Educational System

Marzieh Rafiee, Mahbube Keihaniyan 112-116

Declarative Sentence Pattern In “Laskar Pelangi” And “The Rainbow Troops”: A Translation Study Of Indonesian To English

Heri Kuswoyo 117-121

Translation of the Holy Quran: A Call for Standardization

Ahmad Mustafa Halimah 122-133

Using Supplementary Readings (Short Stories) in Increasing the Conceptual Fluency, the Case of Idioms in English

Elahe Mokhtari, Mohammed Reza Talebinezhad 134-145

The Impact of Time-Series Diagnostic Tests on the Writing Ability of Iranian EFL learners

Bahareh Molazem Atashgahi 146-153

The Timelessness of Art as Epitomized in Shelley’s Ozymandias

Krishna Daiya 154-156

From a Post-traumatic Culture toward the Cultural Trauma of Post-9/11

Roya Jabarouti, ManiMangai Mani 157-163

Attitudes towards Teachers’ Motivation, and Classroom Strategy, in English Language classrooms

Samira Pahlavanpoorfard, Afshin Soori 164-168

“Suicide Heights”: Council Estates As Sites Of Entrapment And Resistance In Hello Mum

Sebnem Toplu 169-174

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 Vol. 5 No. 1; February 2014

Copyright © Australian International Academic Centre, Australia

What Does Good Language Learner (GLL) Say about Foreign Language Learning? A Story from an Indonesian Learner

Ribut Wahyudi

Faculty of Education, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Faculty of Humanities, Maulana Malik Ibrahim State Islamic University, Indonesia

E-mail: [email protected] & [email protected]

Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.1 Received: 05/01/2014 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.1 Accepted: 21/02/2014 Abstract Learning a foreign language could either be problematic or simplistic. For those who have learnt a foreign language (e.g. English) for along period of time but no significant progress it might be discouraging. On the other hand, for the successful learner it might be just an ‘’affordable price’’ to get through. This paper draws on a successful foreign language learning experience by an Indonesian learner of English. Having no English background, along with the learner’s non-linear degree courses makes this success story unique. The data was taken through questionnaire sent through email and Facebook correspondence, in which the respondent answered the set of questions and the researcher clarified for further explanation if the answer was not clear enough. The result of the questionnaire seems to indicate that the respondent characterizes some characteristics of good language learners (Rubin, 1975). However, there are domains in which the respondent’s personal narratives do differ with the characteristics of good language learners as has been described in the former studies. Key words: good language learner, language learning strategy, and foreign language learning 1. Introduction It is a common phenomenon that learning a second language may create problems for its learners. The problems vary from one learner to another. The ways how learners overcome the problems are thus very important to observe in second language learning. In my opinion, seeing the fact that Albard Khan (the Javanese learner in this case study) is not from an English Department background but proficient in English, might have employed good language learning strategies that direct him to the level of proficiency and that these strategies might be, to some extent, different from those investigated by many scholars. Furthermore, the strategies that he exercises might be “interesting combination”. In this article, the informant’s profile along with methodology is presented, followed by summary and discussion of research findings and conclusion. This paper merely focuses on how learning strategies, as one of the variables that determine the success of language learning, help language learners. Other variables such as motivation, personality and learning style of course also play a role in language learning. 2. Informant’s Profile The learner profiled in this paper is Albard Khan, 29 year old English teacher in Indonesia at the time this study was conducted (April 2009). He has a unique study background. He started studying at Islamic Elementary School, followed by Junior high school also at Islamic institution. He then went on studying at Vocational School in engineering and did a bachelor degree in Law in 1999. When he was doing his bachelor’s degree, Albard Khan was the President of University Student English Forum (USEF) in 2001/2002 at the University of Jember, Jawa Timur, Indonesia. During this time running the organization, he had the chance to interact with a native speaker consultant, as well as made use the time to join both local and national English debate competitions. He was motivated to learn English because of a better career that he might get in real life (Instrumental motivation). In late 2007 he joined ITP TOEFL Test administered by Gajah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In this test, he got 633 out of a possible 677. He was also joining 6 months English Intensive Teaching Training called English Language Training for Islamic Schools (ELTIS) at Indonesia-Australia Language Foundation (IALF) Bali 2008 for six months which was accredited by Cambridge University. Again in this case, he could learn English better from qualified native speaker instructor, multimedia resources, books, and others. Currently he is an English Master Trainer for Junior High School Teachers in East Java, Indonesia under AusAid Project. After, one year of joining the Master Trainer program, Albard was awarded Australian Development Scholarship (ADS). Recently he has completed master in Education from Flinders University, Australia. In the process of ADS selection namely 9 January 2010 Albard got an excellent IELTS score. His overall band score is 7.5 out of 9. His reading is 8.5, speaking is 6.5, listening is 7.5 and writing is 8 (Personal communication, 2012).

ALLS 5(1):1-5, 2014 2 3. Methodology 3.1 Methods of Data Collection The data was taken through questionnaire done in one-month period 2009. Follow up question was made for unclear answers either from email and more his confirmation through in a later date Facebook, 2012. The questionnaire indicates that the study was conducted through cross sectional way. The author’s direct contact with Albard while spending his undergraduate back in 2001-2003 in the same organization University Student English Forum (USEF), provides long term informal observation of informant’s English progress. This makes the observation becomes more longitudinal (Dörnyei, 2007). 3.2 Research Approach The approach of this study is narrative inquiry. This allows the informant to narrate ‘a story or a collection of stories’ which is paramount importance due to the ‘variety of insights narrative’ (Murray, 2009, p.47). Further it is explained that one of the areas in which narrative inquiry is used in applied linguistic research is in the area of learning strategies (Oxford & Green, 1996). 3.3 Research questions This research is intended to answer two research questions: 1. What types language learning strategies employed by the informant? 2. How the informant makes use of the strategies to develop his English competence? 4. A Review of Literature on Good Language Learners and Learning Strategy The study on good language learner dates back to the work of Rubin (1975). In this work Rubin describes that good language learner is the one who: (1) is a willing and accurate guesser (2) has a strong drive to communicate and or to learn from communication, (3) are not inhibited (dare to make mistake), (4) is prepared to attend form (language patterns) (5) practices, (6) monitors his/her own and other’s speech and (7) attends to meaning (p.45-47). Expanding the study, Griffiths (2008) edited a book on ‘Lessons from Good Language Learners’ both on leaner variable and learning variable. The learner variable discusses the characteristics of good language learners in relation to age, motivation, learning style, learning strategy, metacognition, beliefs, autonomy, gender, culture and aptitude. While the leaning variable explores the characteristics of good language learner in relation to four language skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking), vocabulary, grammar, functions, pronunciation, teaching/learning method, strategy instruction, error correction and task. Written by different scholars, this book is a complete reference for studies on good language learners (details, see Griffiths, 2008). Other related studies ‘successful language learning in difficult situation’ (Lamb, 2002), ‘understanding good language learners from Vietnamese as a Foreign Language’ (Ho, 2011). Unlike the studies on good language learner, language learning strategy is explored later. In her seminal work, Oxford (1990, p.8) defines strategies as “specific actions taken by the learner to make easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and more transferable to new situations” Another scholar (Chamot 1987 cited in Macaro 2001) explained it as techniques, approaches or deliberate actions that students take in order to facilitate the learning and recall of both linguistics and content area of information. The main idea that can be drawn from the above definitions is that strategy refers to a learner as an active agent, conscious actions, and goal. Furthermore Oxford (1990) divides learning strategies into memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, meta-cognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies (details, see Oxford, 1990). The previous studies on good language learner and learning strategy in Indonesian setting are limited. Those are ‘learner’s motivation and learning strategies in English Foreign Language (EFI) in Indonesian context’ (Mattarima & Hamdan, 2011), ‘language learning strategies of two Indonesian young learners’ (Yusuf, 2012), language learning strategy and learning styles of beginning and intermediate learners (Djiwandono, 1998), beliefs about language learning (Erlenawati, 2002), how learners from different cultural background learn a foreign language (Lengkanawati, 2004), and three most important characteristics of good language learner (Yanto, 2011). It is obvious that a story on good language learners with the particular focus on the learner with non-English schooling background from Indonesian context is absent. In this article, the combination of learner’s strategies from good language learners’ characteristics (GLL) by Griffiths (2008) and Learning Strategies (memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, meta-cognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies) by Oxford (1990) is employed. 5. Discussion In this study, the strategies that Albard applies in his learning, to some extent, conform to higher level language learner characteristics that Griffiths (2008) outlined. The similar strategies are, expanding vocabulary, improving grammar, making the uses of multi-media resources, and having strategies to deal with reading, speaking and listening. While he does not plan what he learns in terms of setting the goals and objectives, identifying the purpose of language tasks, organizing, planning language tasks, finding about language learning as he learns English independently not from the classroom. This makes it slightly different with what have been summarized by Griffiths (2008) in that he managed his own learning in somewhat different ways, learning English from natural setting, whereas the good language learners described by Griffiths learn English from the classroom.

ALLS 5(1):1-5, 2014 3 It is also worth noting that in his story he said that while in undergraduate, he read lots of books regardless of the topics but finally became more selective after graduating from the university. Moreover, he also used to jot down the new vocabularies while reading and looked their meaning, but he abandoned the activity when reading at present and simply check the dictionary. These seem to indicate Takeuchi’s (2003) notions that some strategies may relate to the certain stage of learning and the shift of learning strategies in accordance to one’s learning stages. The tolerance of ambiguity as one of the characteristics of successful language learners is also exercised by my respondent. He stated that he lets the vocabularies and expression pass if they appear less frequent and seriously look up to dictionary or asking to the more proficient learner for the high frequent ones. It is said that ‘’learners who can tolerate moderate levels of ambiguity are more likely to persist in language learning’’ Chapelle, 1983; Naiman, Frohlich, Stern, & Tedesco, 1978, cited in Grace 1998, p.23) and ‘’to achieve more than those than those who cannot tolerate ambiguity’’ (Chapelle & Roberts, 1986; Reiss, 1985; Ehrman, 1993, cited in Grace 1998, p.23). Furthermore, the tolerance of ambiguity has a positive correlation with reading comprehension (Kamran & Maftoon, 2012). His confessions on keeping on practicing when facing difficulties is one of characteristics of good language learners in Indonesian context (Erlenawati, 2002; Yanto, 2012). This also underlines good language learner as Rubin (1975) proposed, in which L2 learner engaged in active practice. Yanto (2011) noted that good or successful language learners make errors work for them meaning that they L2 learner’s errors provide insightful learning explanation for them. The other thing that might be in slightly different with GLL characteristics is the fact he admits to really need to improve writing skills as he hardly practices it as he does not have adequate channel to do it. To make clear insight on GLL, Griffiths (2008) summarized the activities chosen by higher level language learners as the following: ‘’the ability to manage their own learning (meta-cognitive), expand vocabulary, improve the grammar knowledge, use multimedia resources, have strategies involving the four language skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking)’’ (p.92). This might refer to the reality that Albard is not learning English in formal classroom, so that he is not required to have a lot of exercises for this. However, it is noticed that after six month ELTIS training at Indonesia-Australia Language Foundation (IALF), his IELTS overall band score is 7,5. His writing skills improved amazingly gaining 8 in the band score. This might be because he has recognized, mastered the genre of IELTS writing and able to present ‘credible representation’ of academic writing required in IELTS writing (Hyland, 2002; Matsuda & Tardy, 2007 cited in Dressen-Hammouda, 2008, p.239). In undertaking his language learning, Albard Khan employs deductive reasoning (cognitive strategy), applying the general rules and applying them to English (Oxford, 1990). Deductive reasoning itself is ‘’ a kind of reasoning in which, roughly, the truth input of propositions (premises) logically guarantees the truth output of propositions provided that no mistake has been made in reason’’ (Schechetr, 2013). He answered that his first language (Javanese) does not have any relation with English so that he does not find that his Javanese facilitate his language learning experience. This might deal with the fact that that Javanese and English do not have similarities, like the case of English with Dutch or German (Mc Gregor, 2009), where English language learners of these backgrounds might learn English faster due the similarity of the languages. This relates to what he usually does especially in guessing the meaning of words from the contexts (compensation strategies) and his background knowledge either in reading or listening. His level of proficiency might also be affected by his warm welcome to the idea of developing cultural understanding and becoming aware of other’s thought and feeling so that he can interact with more and more friends (social strategy). This might help him improve his communicative competence. In this case, he is not trapped with language ego, the identity developed in reference to language he speaks (Brown, 2007). As it is said that language ego may inhibit a language learner in their learning process (Brown, 2007). Albard is a kind of risk taker (Rubin, 1975) in that he experiments the new words by using them in real communications (social strategy) with his friends both when he was at USEF and ELTIS. This is a positive trait for a language learner in which he does not only receive the language but also produce it (see Griffiths, 2008). The change of his reading habit from unselective to selective readings (e.g. Law and English Teaching Methodology) might reflect that his interest has converged to these areas. This might mean that he wants to merely devote his time to his professional career. His language progress measurement through getting his ideas acrossed could be influenced by the fact that he focuses more on meaning and the use of language (meta-cognitive strategy). His belief that reviewing the material he learned would reinforce his knowledge denotes that he exercises meta-cognitive strategy (Oxford, 1990) However, the fact that he reviews them occasionally might mean that he only prioritizes to review materials that help him more on his interest. His proficiency is also enhanced by his hobbies to watch American Movies (memory strategy), where he can spot the use of words in informal conversation besides he can learn how to pronounce words from the programs. According to him, this increases his vocabulary bank. This way might relate to the idea of controlling vocabulary learning in which learners need to know what ‘’vocabulary to learn, how to go about learning it, and how to assess and monitor and monitor their progress’’ (Moir and Nation, 2008). This activity is usually done by higher level of learners (Griffiths, 2008). Letting the infrequent words pass when he does not understand their meaning and looking up at dictionary as well as consulting to the expert when he finds frequent difficult appearing words in texts, is a helpful strategy. This is because he is not stuck in one word and only clarifies the important words that may be useful for him. Nation (2001) divided vocabulary into four categories: high frequency words, academic words, technical words, and low frequency words. The

ALLS 5(1):1-5, 2014 4 high frequency words involve content words such as: government, forest, production, adoption etc. Academic words are words appeared in academic texts such as policy, phase, adjusted, sustained etc. Technical words are ‘’the words that are closely related to the topic and subject area of text’’ (p.12) such as motivation, learning strategy, personality factors, aptitude are technical words in SLA, while low frequency words such as ‘’zoned’’, ‘’pioneering’’, ‘’pastoral’’ counting merely over 5% in the academic text’’ (p.12). Moreover, his confirmation that in solving the difficulties in speaking and writing he usually practices them indicates that he is highly motivated learner. Besides that he also may get better comprehension by doing these repetitions. This practice was also reflected in Erlenawati’s research (2002) on Indonesian learner. Albard seems also to exercise (affective strategy) well by saying that if he gets unexpected result of learning he will keep on studying and by abandoning dealing with English when he is tired. This is because he said this will create unpleasant perception, but his interest on the language grows stronger when he gets fresh. In this case he can manage the time when he can learn when not to learn. This is one of the characteristics of higher level learner (Griffiths, 2008). The fact that he exercises 6 strategies (from the most used to the least); guessing the meaning from the whole context, using dictionary, speculating with the language by using new vocabulary in communication anyway, extensive reading, skimming and scanning shows that as adult learner he has his own set patterns of learning (Harmer, 2001). 6. Conclusion Learning strategy might be implemented in slightly different ways by good language learners. In this paper the learner does not seem to follow exactly the learning strategy proposed by scholars such as he did not plan his learning such as setting the goals and objectives, identifying purposes of language task etc. From the confession of the leaner in his narrative, reading diverse sources and watching American movies are facilitative in his learning process. He also believes that exercising new words in speaking is necessary. As the L2 learner coming from non-English department background, his emphasis of learning is on the meaning and use of English. As might other GLL learners do, he always uses the language in communication activities, experimenting and speculating the use of language. Another key aspect of his success in mastering English might be triggered by his instrumental motivation to have a better career for his future. This has been supported by the studies that motivation plays a significant role in the success of language learning (Dörnyei, 2008). This might also portray the fact ‘specific motivational processes are related to the salience of the mastery and performance goals in actual classroom setting’ (Ames & Archer, 1988, p.260). All the activities that Albard experienced in his learning seems to underline the five characteristics of language learners such as: ‘’taking an active approach to the task of language learning, recognizing and exploiting the systematic nature of language, using the language they were learning for communication and interaction, managing their own affective difficulties with language learning, and monitoring their language learning performance’’ (Norton & Toohey, 2001, p.309). Albard’s successful language learning experience is essential in that it depicts slightly different characteristics of L2 learner in employing his strategy in mastering English such as he never reviews the materials he has learnt. This might highlight one of the future research in learning strategy in which as Chamot (2005) stated that ‘’the study of language learning strategies will continue to develop as second language acquisition researchers seek to understand different learner characteristics and the complex cognitive, social, and affective processes involved in processing language input and using the language for a variety of purposes’’ (p.126). Not exact match in the success story of language learning in relation to language learning strategy might encourage us to consider ‘’what is normal activity and language learning strategy use’’ (Riding and Rayner 1998 cited in Dornyei 2005, p.165). They explained that strategic learning is ‘’purposeful effort to select and then pursue learning procedures that they believe will increase individual learning effectiveness’’. It is further explained that an activity becomes strategic when it is appropriate for individual learner. Another worth noting notion is tactic, ‘particular form of schemata’, and strategic, ‘a broader design or plan for approaching high level goal and it coordinates a set of tactics’ (Winne, 2001, cited in Dornyei 2005, p.165). These leave us with more cautions for future research especially in generalizing or labeling language learning strategy studies. The last, but not least, interesting ideas comes from Ehrman, Leaver and Oxford (2003 cited in Dörnyei, 2005, p.166). They stated that ‘’ a given learning strategy is neither good nor bad. It is essentially neutral until it is considered in context. A strategy is useful under the conditions: (a) the strategy relates well to the L2 task at hand, (b) the strategy fits the particular student’s learning style preferences to one degree or another, and (c) the students employ the strategy effectively and link it with other relevant strategies’’. These points open more flexible space where L2 language learners could be successful in language learning through more a complex process in which learning strategy is merely one of the variables characterizing successful language learning by good language learner. Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Dr Sara Cotterall on the earlier feedback of this article. This article is the development of one of her assignments in Principles of Language Learning and Teaching Course during my study in Graduate Certificate in TEFL at the Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney, Australia 2009. I would also thank my friend Albard Khan for sharing his foreign language learning history in this study.

ALLS 5(1):1-5, 2014 5 References Ames, C & Archer, J. 1988. Achievement goals in the classroom: Student’s learning strategies and motivation process. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 3, 260-267. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.80.3.260 Brown, H. D. 2007. Principles of language learning and teaching. New York: Pearson education Chamot, A. U. 2005. Language learning strategy instruction: Current issues and research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. 25, 112-130. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0267190505000061 Djiwandono, P. 1998. Language learning strategy and learning styles of beginning and intermediate learners. TEFLIN Journal, Volume IX, Number 1. Dörnyei, Z. 2005. The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Dörnyei, Z. 2007. Research methods in applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dörnyei, Z. 2008. Motivation and good language learners. In Griffiths, C. (Ed).2008. Lessons from good language learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dressen-Hammouda, D. 2008. From novice to disciplinary expert: Disciplinary identity and genre mastery, English for Specific Purposes, 27, 233-252. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2007.07.006 Erlenawati. 2002. Beliefs about language learning: Indonesian learners' perspectives, and some Implications for classroom practices. Australian Journal of Education. 46 (3), 323 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000494410204600306 Grace, C. 1998. Personality type, tolerance of ambiguity, and vocabulary retention in CALL. CALICO Journal, 15, 19-45. Griffiths, C. 2008. Learning strategies and good language learners. In Griffiths, C. (Ed) Lessons from good language learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Harmer, J. 2001. The practice of English language teaching. Essex: Longman Ho, G. A. L. 2011. Understanding good language learners of Vietnamese as a foreign language. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching. 8, 2, 385-398. Kamran, S.K. & Maftoon, P. 2012. An analysis of the associations between ambiguity tolerance and EFL reading strategy awareness. English Language Teaching. 5, 3, 188-196. Khan, A. (2009, April). Questioner on learning strategies. Email correspondence. Khan, A. (2012, June). IELTS score. Facebook correspondence. Lamb, M. 2002. Explaining successful language learning in difficult circumstances. Prospect, 17, 2, 35-52. Lengkanawati, N.S. 2004. How learners from different cultural backgrounds learn a foreign language. Asian EFL Journal. 6 (1). Macaro, E.2001. Learning strategies in foreign and second language classrooms. London: Continuum Mattarima, K. & Hamdan, A. R. 2011. Learner’s motivation and learning strategies in English foreign language (EFI) in Indonesian context. Journal of Edupres. 1, 100-108. Mc Gregor, W. 2009. An introduction to linguistics. London: Continuum. Moir, J & Nation, P. 2008. Vocabulary and good language learners. In Griffith (ed). Lessons from good language learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murray, G. 2009. Narrative inquiry. In J. Heigham & R. A. Croker (eds). Qualitative research in Applied Linguistics: A practical introduction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Nation, I.S.P. 2001. Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Noorton, B. & Toohey, K. 2001. Changing perspectives on good language learners. TESOL Quarterly, 35, 2, 307-322. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3587650 Oxford, R, L. 1990. Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. Boston: Heinle and Heinle Publishers Oxford, R. & Green, J. 1996. Language learning histories: Learners and teachers helping each other understand learning styles and strategies. TESOL Quarterly, 6(1), 20-23. Rubin, J. 1975. What the ‘’good language learner’’ can teach us? TESOL Quarterly. 9(1), 41-51. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3586011 Schechetr, J. 2013, Deductive reasoning. In H. Pashler (ed). The encyclopedia of the mind. San Diego: Sage Publication Inc. Takeuchi, O. 2003. What can we learn from good language leaners? A qualitative study in Japanese foreign language context. System, 31, 385-392. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0346-251X(03)00049-6 Yanto, T. 2011. The three important characteristics of good language learner. In http://bahasa.kompasiana.com/2011/07/15/the-three-most-important-characteristics-of-good-language-learners/ Accessed June 13, 2012. Yusuf, S. 2012. Language learning strategies of two Indonesian young learners in the USA. International Journal of English Linguistics. 2, 4, 65-72. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v2n4p65.



Should Humanism Approach Be Applied In English As A Second Language (ESL) Classrooms?

Lee Yi Ling

College of Foundation and General Studies, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Putrajaya, Selangor

Ng Yu Jin (corresponding author) College of Foundation and General Studies, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Putrajaya, Selangor

E-mail: [email protected]

Chong Seng Tong College of Foundation and General Studies, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Putrajaya, Selangor

Mohd. Ariff Tarmizi

College of Foundation and General Studies, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Putrajaya, Selangor

Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.6 Received: 04/01/2014 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.6 Accepted: 20/02/2014 Abstract In the process of learning, many elements fall into place wholly in order to enhance effectiveness. These elements include not only environmental factors but also learners’ mentality which involves their feelings, needs and interests. Humanism approach is one which caters these elements required by learners’ learning process through emphasis on student-centeredness in class. The paradigm of this approach is mainly on what learners are desire to learn, instead of teaching them what is perceived to be essentially acquired. For years, there have been controversial debates concerning the effectiveness of humanism approach in teaching. With the aim of scrutinizing the relevance and applicability of this approach in the Malaysian teaching context, a humanistic lesson was conducted and recorded in Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN). The lesson was then analysed to obtain some results. Keywords: Humanism approach, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs learning needs, learning interests 1. Introduction Humanism approach is a paradigm which instills belief in prescribing students with what should happen in their learning, rather than describing what will happen or is happening. This approach emphasizes mainly on what learners are yearning to learn, instead of what the society thinks they should learn. In other words, students should be given the right to decide on the content of their lesson, as they should be the one to control and empower the learning process. Today, humanistic ideas are no longer existing solely in the word of philosophy, considerable amount of interests as well as controversies about humanistic approach, have emerged in the field of education. Some think that this approach could improve learning outcome among learners when their emotions and needs are considered the priorities in their learning process. Many have debated for it, some, against it. Despite controversies that have arisen in the last few decades, this paper aims to examine to what extend does humanistic matters, in the writers’ teaching. This paper consists of five parts including this introduction as its first. Second section includes a review of the humanistic approach in English language teaching (ELT), followed by the third section comprising critical appraisal of this approach (including for and against arguments). In the fourth section, this paper describes how humanistic approach is relevant to the teaching context in Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN), including learners’ needs and background. This paper will then end with a conclusion. 2. The humanism approach The humanism approach believes that human beings possess capability not found in other living objects, hence it concerns about human interests and needs. It demonstrates strong objection towards operant conditioning theory, formulated by behaviourist – B. F. Skinner. The reason being that humanists believe every individual behaves based on intentionality and values. The theory also emphasizes on studying humans as an entirety, specifically when an individual is developing over his or her lifespan. Carl Rogers – an American psychologist – is one prominent figure in humanistic approach. He believes that human beings have one general objective – “to fulfill one’s potential and achieve the highest level of ‘human-beingness’” (See Rogers [1959] in Jarvis, 2000). He also believes that human beings are innately kind-hearted, but become vicious or disparaging when there are external factors which dominate the process of seeking self-value. Rogers’s most significant

ALLS 5(1):6-11, 2014 7 contribution to the humanistic approach is the scrutiny on the “self” in human beings, which is an essential aspect in human psychology. Rogers states that every individual has a certain level of self-confidence, and positive or negative feelings towards themselves. One is considered to have high level of self-worth, if he or she is confident and injects positive feelings even when challenges and failures approach (Jarvis, 2000; McLeod, 2007). Rogers and another prominent figure in humanistic approach, Abraham Maslow, both believe that every individual should exercise freewill, which means they should be allowed to choose their way of living. They also propose that the most fundamental motivation in life is personal growth and fulfillment (McLeod, 2007). This is what Maslow tries to introduce as “self-actualisation” in his Hierarchy of Needs (See Maslow, 1943).

Figure 1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Tay L, and Diener E. (2011))

The Hierarchy of Needs (Figure 1) is a model that includes five categories of human needs, according to their importance and proportion in our daily life. Each category is properly explained by Maslow. It is presented in the shape of a pyramid, and starts from the lowest level with (1) physiological needs, which comprises the most basic needs to survive: food, water, air, shelter, and so on. It is claimed that only when physiological needs have been satisfied, can a person be active and concentrate on other matters. At the second lowest level is the (2) safety needs, which explains that human beings need physical as well as mental protection. This means that having a refuge is not enough; one should also feel mentally safe and be free from fear, anxiety, and chaos in life. The third level is (3) love needs, which suggests that every individual needs a sense of belonging and love. Followed by that is the (4) esteem need, which emerges from human beings’ desire to lead a reputable and prestigious life, in order to be respected by others. And finally, once all of these needs have been fulfilled, one is expected to achieve (5) self-actualisation, the highest level of the model (Maslow, 1987, 15-22). This model is important because according to Maslow, in order to self-actualise, human beings will be motivated to move from one level to another level higher, even facing problems during the process is taken positively because when one intends to succeed, he/she will learn to solve whatever problems faced (Patterson, 1977). Stevick (1990, p.23) citing Kurtz, defines “humanism” as “being critical of anything that ‘alienates or depersonalizes’ including ‘ideology, bureaucracy or technology’”. He also adds that humanists’ general concerns revolve around perception towards human beings as a whole, the completion of each potential capabilities, and possession of freedom among humans in determining their destiny (see Kurtz, 1973). More to the point, Stevick also identifies five emphases within humanism, which are considered distinctive human qualities (p. 23-24). The five qualities include:

i. Feelings (emotions and appreciation of beauty)

This emphasis explains that the humanism approach tends to reject whatever factors that hinder gladness and lead to bad feelings.

ii. Social relations This emphasis supports friendship and mutual aid between peers, and dissuades the opposite.

iii. Responsibilities This aspect emphasizes on the importance of the need of critique, rectification, rejection, and scrutiny from public.

iv. Intellect (reason, knowledge and understanding) This emphasis opposes whichever idea that hampers the free exercise of human’s mind, and seizes belief in anything can possibly be tested intellectually.

v. Self actualization (one’s recognition of his/her deepest and true qualities) The emphasis believes that liberation is the result of pursuit of exceptionality.

ALLS 5(1):6-11, 2014 8 On the other hand, according to Moskowitz (1978), which has also been widely cited by Stevick, humanistic education is:

… [related] to the feelings, experiences, memories, hopes, aspirations, beliefs, values, needs, and fantasies of students, it strives to integrate the subject matter and personal growth dimensions into the curriculum. In any learning situation, feelings are always present and should be drawn upon, as they exert an influential role (1978, p. 14).

Based on how Moskowitz defines humanistic education, it can be concluded that this approach is closely related to affective education. The term affect, as asserted by Arnold (1999, p. 3), refers to “how [a] thing or [an] action or [a] situation or [an] experience fits in with one’s needs or purpose, and its resulting effect on one’s emotions”. This summarises the core idea of humanistic approach, which suggests that in students’ learning process, their feelings should first be catered before the teacher can assist their acquisition of knowledge. A way of catering their feelings is by granting them much freedom in the classroom. Some examples of such freedom include the right to decide which piece of knowledge would be most useful and important to them, the privilege to select a discussion topic that seems appealing to them, and the permission to select activities that could enhance their interest in learning, hence make them feel motivated to learn. These will hopefully lead to “meaningful learning” (Patterson, 1977), in which students can engage with their personal life, understand the meaning and hold personal relevance. This strives to endow students with liberal education, and authorises them to achieve self-actualisation. Freedom is particularly important, because it is what Maslow (1987) considers as the preconditions of basic needs in his Hierarchy of Needs before they can achieve the highest level – self-actualisation. Maslow asserts that:

There are certain conditions that are immediate prerequisites for the basic needs for the basic need satisfactions. Such as freedom to speak, freedom to do what one wishes so long as no harm is done to others, freedom to express oneself, freedom to investigate and seek information, freedom to defense oneself, justice, fairness, honesty and orderliness in the group are examples of such preconditions for basic need satisfactions (1987, p. 22).

Other than looking at students’ needs, educators’ role is another important element that must not be forsaken in humanistic approach. The term “facilitator” has been granted to educators in this approach, in order to assist students in achieving self-actualisation. The function of educators in the classroom is as helpers who provide guidance to students in their knowledge acquiring progress. They should play their part as friends who are approachable to spare freedom to students, so that they can learn according to their ability, tempo, and interests, rather than forcing them to follow the educators’ methods of teachings (Jain, 2011). 2.1 History and development humanism in teaching According to the Encyclopaedia of Philosophy of Education, the history of humanism in teaching can be trailed back to centuries ago during the time period of Ancient Rome, “with its central notion of Humanitas” (Aloni, 1999). Aloni asserts that it was only until the 18th century, when the Humanistic Education and Liberal Education were parallel in terms of importance, that education was considered appropriate for every individual. A shift from the paradigm of science and critical thinking to equality and freedom happened around two centuries ago, which was consequential to the development of humanism in education. Education hence became far more liberal, accessible to public, as well as receptive and selfless without highlighting cultural or individual differences and wants (Ibid). Humanism became more widespread in 1940’s – some time post World War II – when the school of humanism was established. The main intention of its establishment was to defeat behaviourists’ idea of what was coined by Jarvis (2000, p. 62) as “determinism”, which means “what makes us behave as we do”. During the “golden age”, Decarvalho (1991) of behaviourism, humanists were dissatisfied with behaviourists’ perception towards human nature and methods, which centralised on stimulus and reinforcement (positive and negative). In year 1943, American psychologist introduced the Hierarchy of Needs which explained different stages of human needs and motivation. Three years later, Rogers’s Significant Aspects of Client-centered Therapy was published, and the world was exposed to the Rogerian Theory – Person-centered Therapy. The humanistic movement continued to be influential in the 60’s when Maslow, together with another psychologist, founded the Association for Humanistic Psychology in 1961, and had their first issue of Journal of Humanistic Psychology published in spring of the following year (McLeod, 2007). The humanists were strongly against scientific reductionism, in which they regarded human beings as objects (Smith, 1999). Also, they rejected the application of result results which were heavily dependent on animals to human beings (McLeod, 2007). Consequently, humanists aimed to reinstate equilibrium in psychology, with the least assistance of psychological theory, by attending to humans’ individual wants, motivation, feelings, as well as targeting to focus on human potential, dignity, and most importantly, freedom (Jarvis, 2000, p. 63; Smith, 1999; Huitt, 2001).

ALLS 5(1):6-11, 2014 9 2.2 The humanistic approach in ELT Since the exposure of humanistic approach to the world in 1940’s, it has brought about certain extend of resonance to the field of education. Learning in today’s world no longer revolves solely around the academic or knowledge that equips one to locate a good occupation. On the contrary, people seek to gain basic skills of surviving, skills that go beyond writing, reading, language, mathematics and science. These are the most basic components of a traditionally designed curriculum, which the world used to consider as what learners ought to learn in a formal setting. Nonetheless, with the evolvement of humanism in the world of education, the world no longer holds the same belief. Learners nowadays are aspired to always expand their understanding about problem-solving, critical thinking, innovation and creation. The humanism approach has brought about great changes to teaching methodologies. Its profound impact was most significant throughout 1970’s and 1980’s when several new methodologies which were associated with “designed methodologies” such as Communicative Language Learning, Suggestopedia as well as The Silent Way which emerged in late 70’s (Pigott, n.d.; Gadd, 1998; McLeod, 2007) until eventually learners achieving self-actualisation. 3. Critique Similar to other theories introduced to a related field of study, the humanistic approach, too, received both criticisms and positive reinforcements. One of the criticisms which was worth mentioning would be from American behaviourists, Burrhus Frederic Skinner. Skinner was not convinced by Rogers’s humanism theory, due to the reason that Rogers’s conclusions about humans’ needs were drawn from his patients’ therapy. Skinner doubted the reliability of Rogers’s inferences on the theory because what had the patients expressed to Rogers may or may not be true. Hence interpretations that Rogers made based on his therapy sessions with the patients could be questionable (Jarvis, 2000, p. 67). Other than Skinner, psychologists who are firm believers of other theoretical background refused to agree with Rogers. He was criticised that his over optimistic perception towards human beings as “essentially good and striving to fulfill their potential” to be unrealistic and immature (Ibid). Terms such as “naïve, romantic, and unrealistic” have been used to give negative attributions to the approach. Critics are doubtful about the idea that good qualities in every individual is innate and “and growth oriented” as proposed by this approach (Bernstein, 2010). It is believed that the lack of attention on many factors could also affect personality growth. The factors are, for instances situational stimulus, inborn traits, learning, as well as unmindful motivational reasons (Ibid). Apart from that, there have also been negative comments on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow suggests that if the first four levels are not fulfilled, it will lead to deficiency of motivation in students’ learning process. Nonetheless, it is not clearly defined and stated that to what extend could the deficiency impact students. Also, one deficiency that could impinge on an individual does not necessarily bring the same influence to another individual, because some do not agree with Maslow that the satisfaction of lower needs must be met before one can move on to higher needs (Smith, 1999; Learning Theories Knowledgebase, 2012). 4. The relevance of humanism approach to students of Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) 4.1 Teaching context and methodology In order to investigate the relevance of Humanistic approach with UNITEN students, a lesson using the approach was conducted and recorded. Participants involved in the research included an assistant lecturer who teaches English to foundation students, and 30 Foundation in Information Technology students. The composition of these students was 12 Indians, 10 Malays and 8 Chinese. The students were aware that they were being recorded. The lesson which the recording took place was a public speaking class named English for Academic Purposes (ENGF103). This course prepares foundation students in the institution with presentational skills, communicative strategies, outlining techniques for speeches, as well as presentation visual aids preparation. In this particular lesson, the students were exposed to several types of ceremonial speeches, namely speech of welcome, speech of introduction, speech of nomination, speech of recognition and speech of acceptance. It was a one-hour class with a 15-minute lecture and 40-minute activity. The methodology applied in this lesson was task-based learning, in which students were divided into six groups of five, and were allowed to choose a type of speech to read and present to their peers. 4.2 Teaching method employed in the lesson The teaching method employed in conducting the lesson was the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) method. In this method, students participate in activities that are meaningful, which focus on information sharing. For instance, students will be asked to work together and contribute to their groups (Li, 2012). In this video, students were given handouts to read up and understand their respective type of speeches, which were then presented to their peers in class. In CLT, the teacher plays the role of a facilitator, which is as suggested by humanistic approach, to ease the process of communicating among students (Ibid). After students were divided into groups and started their reading task, the instructor went from group to group, to assist their understanding about their own topic. This was to make sure that students could grasp a complete idea of their part before explaining to other students. The reading and facilitating process lasted for 15 minutes.

ALLS 5(1):6-11, 2014 10 The CLT method provides a more interesting learning process because elements related to communication and context is brought into consideration. This is coincidentally proven by the first group of students who presented about speech of acceptance by doing role play – one was presenting an award; another was accepting it. Their peers enjoyed their presentation and could understand the topic easily because the pair of students provided a context (award giving ceremony) to what they were explaining, hence they were able to engage to their previous exposure to the situation. Role-playing is indeed a powerful educative tool as described by Eiben & Milliren (1976, p. 81). At the end of the first group’s presentation, the instructor recapped the recently presented subject matter, and added missing pieces of information to enhance students’ understanding. There are, nonetheless, disadvantages of this method. Students who are weaker in grammar for example, will have problems playing their part in their teaching-learning groups, and might struggle through the lesson (Ibid). 4.3 Elements that are already part of the teaching in response to video A comparison was done between what the instructor had planned to do in class and what was eventually carried out. The first humanistic element found in the lesson is addressing students’ rights to freedom in learning. This was at the beginning of the lesson after the instructor explained to the students their task of the day, and previewed the five types of speeches which they would have to present. They were given the liberty to select the type of speech they wanted, instead of being assigned with a random topic. Giving freedom to students in their learning process is one of the most prevalent characteristic of humanistic approach (Moskowitz, 1978, p. 12). It is believed that students have more confidence in sharing their knowledge if they are allowed to choose what they want to learn. This is because having freedom of selection would result to students learning about a topic which they are interested in, and feel certain that they will be able to accomplish the task by meeting required standard. Such an important precondition of basic needs in the Hierarchy of Needs could then lead to indefinite possibilities for individual development. As proposed by Stevick, one learns best when a person has some control over that he would like to learn (Maslow, 1987; Smith, 1999; Gadd, 1999). Apart from catering students’ freedom in selection of the topic that they would like to work on, the instructor abandoned the traditionally prescribed teacher-centered style of teaching, and showed sincerity in her teaching. Patterson (1977) states that when a teacher is willing to put aside his or her public image of an educator, he or she will come across more direct and closer relationships with students. This was experienced by the instructor as students had no fear in approaching her for queries. It was also observed that students felt less restricted in class, and were asking extensive amount questions while being facilitated. This was especially obvious among students who usually remain completely silent in class – they raised their hands and were eager to seek clarification from the instructor. The class activity is perceived as great success as the facilitation was able to motivate them to read and listen to others, at the same time elicit realness from students during their group discussion. 4.4 Elements that are not part of my teaching and how to incorporate them in the future Another comparison was done between what the instructor had planned to do in class and what was not and should have been carried out in the class. The first element is catering students’ feelings, which is considered as one of the two major emphases that Moskowitz (1978) perceives as most essential. Moskowitz (1978, p. 12) writes that “humanistic education should take into consideration that learning is affected by how students feel about themselves”. She asserts that students’ feelings about themselves is an important factor which could affect their motivation and eventually affect their learning process. In order to boost students’ positive self-concept, instructors should be reminded that students need to be given positive reinforcements to feel motivated and have a sense or assurance. It is noticeable that praises is one element which was lacking in the lesson. Students were not praised after their presentation even though they had done a good job. It is important for instructors to verbalize their opinions about students’ performance in helping them to improve especially if the feedbacks are positive. It is only then that students will have higher self-esteem and feel motivated to learn. Other than that, it was also found that students participated in given tasks solely because they were asked to, without recognizing the needs of the group discussion and the purpose of the topics learned in class. When the needs are not made aware of, there is again, no motivation to acquire a certain piece of knowledge or information (Moskowitz, 1987, p. 12), hence knowledge that students learn in class will not be retained in their memory, because there is no motivation for them to remember the information received. Therefore, the instructor should have started the lesson with a set induction, for instance have students to share their experience about giving ceremonial speeches in special occasions, to capture their interest in different types of ceremonial speeches taught in class. Set induction would be the best timing to explain about the importance of the topic and the relevance of the topic in their daily lives, and make clear about the aims and objectives of the lesson. Only when students feel engaged to the topic, will they be able to see the needs for them to learn about the topic. 5. Conclusion Learning is a process which does not revolve bluntly on gaining knowledge. Rather, it involves many factors that would affect the effectiveness of it, for instance feelings, needs and interests of the learners and the educators. While emphasizing on maximizing learning outcome, educators should take into consideration the emotions of learners and engage them in the whole process to enhance their eagerness to learn. Additionally, educators must not see themselves as an emotionless and distant source of knowledge to the students. It is important to make themselves real role models,

ALLS 5(1):6-11, 2014 11 and demonstrate liberty, belief, faith, reliance, reality, support, dedication, accountability, fairness, as well as respect in class, in order to create a truly humanistic environment. If these components are lacking, the approach would be meaningless, even “the most beautiful moven theory of humanistic education would fail to become a lived reality for its teachers and students” (Aloni, 1999). References Aloni, N. (1999). Humanistic education. The encyclopaedia of philosophy of education. Retrieved from http://www.ffst.hr/ENCYCLOPAEDIA/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=humanistic_education Arnold, J. (1999). Affect in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bernstein, D. A. (2010). Essentials of psychology (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning. DeCarvalho, R. J. (1991). The humanistic paradigm in education. The Humanistic Psychologist,19(1), 88-104. Eiben, R. & Milliren, A. (1976). Educational change: A humanistic approach. California: University Associates. Gadd, N. (1998). Towards less humanistic English teaching. ELT journal, 52(3), 223-234. Huitt, W. (2009). Humanism and open education. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta,GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/affect/humed.html Jain, T. (2011). Essay: Humanistic approach to learning means a process that is inevitable and unique for every individual. Essay in English language. Retrieved from http://www.preservearticles.com/2011082912260/essay-humanistic-approach-to- learning-means-a-process-that-is-inevitable-and-unique-for-every-individual.html Jarvis, M. (2000). Humanistic psychology. Theoretical approaches in psychology. London: Routledge. Learning theories knowledgebase. (2012). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs on Learning-theories.com. Retrieved from http://www.learning-theories.com/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs.html Li, W. (2012). An eclectic method of college English teaching. Journal of language teaching and research, 3(1), 166-171. Doi: 10.4304/jltr.3.1.166-171 Maslow, A. H. (1987). Motivation and personality (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers. McLeod, S. (2007). Humanism. Simply psychology. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/humanistic.html Moskowitz, G. (1978). Caring and sharing in the English language classroom: A source book on humanistic techniques. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers. Patterson, C. H. (1977). Carl Rogers and humanistic education. Foundations for a theory of instruction and educational pyshology. New York, NY: Harper & Row. Rogers, C. (1957). Freedom to learn. Panarchy.org. retrieved from http://www.panarchy.org/rogers/learning.html Smith, M. K. (1999). The humanistic to learning. The encyclopedia of informal education. Retrieved from www.infed.org/biblio/learning-humanistic.htm Stevick, E. W. (1990). Humanism in language teaching: A critical perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tay L, and Diener E. (2011). Needs and subjective well-being around the world. Journal of Personal Social Psychology, 101(2), 354-65.



Expectations Of Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) Stakeholders On The Ulul Albab Curriculum At A MARA

Junior Science College (MRSM)

Umi Kalthom Abdul Manaf (corresponding author) Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, UPM Serdang, Selangor, MALAYSIA


Nurul Fitriah Alias Universiti Teknologi MARA

Ady Hameme Nor Azman

Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, UPM Serdang, Selangor, MALAYSIA

Fadzilah Abdul Rahman Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, UPM Serdang, Selangor, MALAYSIA

Hafizah Zulkifli

Information Science And Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.12 Received: 07/01/2014 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.12 Accepted: 21/02/2014 Abstract Ulul Albab is an educational programme of integration between the existing programmes in MARA Junior Science College (MRSM) with the religious school programme including Tahfiz Al-Quran. MRSM Ulul Albab education programme is designed to produce professional experts, entrepreneurs and technocrats that are well versed in the field of religion-based Al-Quran and Sunnah as Ulul Albab generation. This study aims to explore stakeholders' expectations on the Ulul Albab programme in MRSM Kota Putra, Besut Terengganu towards students' sahsiah. The methodology used was qualitative in nature in the form of semi-structured interviews conducted with the four MARA stakeholders. Validity and reliability of data were done through several techniques employed such as member checking, rich thick description, clarification of researcher biases, peer review and debriefing, and external audit. The findings from this study indicate that inculcation of akhlak is fundamental in human capital development. This is the case because stakeholders believe that the main intention of the programme is to develop an Ulul Albab generation who are not only knowledgeable and skilled but also possess good qualities namely devotion, noble, responsible and committed to religion, nation and state. Aside from that, findings also showed that teaching and learning that is based on love is fundamental in fostering good akhlak.

Keywords: Ulul Albab, stakeholders, expectations and sahsiah

1. Introduction

Ulul Albab programme is originally an idea and inspiration of MARA chairman, YB Dato' Seri Idris Jusoh as an attempt to integrate Islamic education into all curriculum programmes in schools. This is an educational programme of integration between the existing programme in MARA Junior Science College (MRSM) with the religious school programme including Tahfiz Al-Quran. MRSM Ulul Albab education programme is designed to produce professional experts, entrepreneurs and technocrats that are well versed in the field of religion-based al-Quran and Sunnah as Ulul Albab generation. The main objective of this programme is to develop Ulul Albab generation who are not only knowledgeable and skilled but also possess good qualities namely devoted, noble, responsible and committed to religion, nation and state. Accordingly, MRSM Kota Putra, Besut Terengganu Malaysia has been selected as the pioneer of the programme and currently this programme is also implemented in two other MRSMs which are MRSM Kepala Batas and MRSM Gemencheh.

In general, the word “Ulul Albab” is attributed to a group of individuals who possess the characteristics of Ulul Albab as mentioned in the Al-Quran. The term Ulul Albab in the Quran has demonstrated its values, greatness and importance to Muslims and mankind at large. According to the Quranic translation, Ulul Albab is defined as “those who understand” (orang yang berakal) and “those who have a mind” (orang yang mempunyai fikiran). Meanwhile, Al-

ALLS 5(1):12-20, 2014 13 Marbawi Dictionary stated that Ulul Albab is originally derived from two-words which are Ulu and Al-Albab. Ulu means “who have” (yang mempunyai), while Al-Albab is a plural form from the word “lubb”, which stands for “the essence of something” (pati sesuatu), “pure mind” (akal yang bersih) and “heart” (hati).

Imam Ibn Kathir in his interpretation has illustrated Ulul Albab as those who have pure and ideal thoughts and are able to understand meanings in a right way. Ultimately they will discover the truth that could save them in the world and hereafter. This requires them to develop a mature mind until they are able to distinguish between right and wrong, between good and bad and between beneficial and futile as deemed by Allah as Ulul Albab individuals as stated in surah al-Zumar:

"Therefore reveal to My servants. (They are) those who make a great effort to listen to the words (which conveyed) and they follow the words; those are the people who have been given guidance by Allah and they are Ulul Albab"

There are various definitions related to Ulul Albab, raised by philosophers based on their point of views. Idris (2006) as cited in Wan Mariana & Mohd Shafiee (2012), defined Ulul Albab as individuals with strong foundation of Al-Quran, extensive and diverse knowledge as well as able to think and observe events of God's creation through the eyes and sharp mind and eventually learn from it.

Meanwhile Shahran (2006) asserted that Ulul Albab as a group of people who are given privileged by Allah s.w.t, in which those that are given wisdom and knowledge. Osman (2006) highlighted that Ulul Albab are encyclopedic scholars (ulamak ensiklopedik) who are the most important individuals who spread the spirit of Islam and mold Islamic civilization based on their ability to master various fields of knowledge (Wan Mariana & Mohd Shafiee, 2012).

In his book entitled ‘Generasi Ulul Albab Segunung Harapan Seteguh Gagasan’, Sabri (2009) had listed several perspectives regarding the definition of Ulul Albab from various Islamic scholars’ perspectives. One of them is the former Perlis mufti, Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin who has defined Ulul Albab as those who possess wisdom and a mature understanding that allows them to make accurate judgments. His notion is supported by Abdullah (2006) which states that Ulul Albab are those who are wise and possess knowledge in the field of fardhu ain and fardhu kifayah. Meanwhile, according to Danial Zainal Abidin (2007) the term Ulul Albab potrays individuals who think deeply and are able to put all things in the right perspectives. In addition, these individuals live out the concept of remembrance and thought by chanting and glorifying Allah through observation of God's creation (Sabri, 2009).

From these definitions, it can be concluded that the concept of Ulul Albab serves as an important paradigm in every action based on deep mastery of knowledge which can be applied in any circumstances and challenges faced by the Muslim communities and the world in general. Therefore, there is a need to integrate the concept of Ulul Albab in the Malaysian education system in order to produce ideal human being (insan kamil).

With the intention of upholding the ideals of Islamic and holistic education as indicated in the National Philosophy of Education through the curriculum, MRSM has implemented Ulul Albab programme which integrated three important components namely Quranik, Ensiklopedik and Ijtihadik. Ulul Albab programme emphasizes a different teaching and learning process that places a strong emphasis on the Quran. The main objective of the implementation of Ulul Albab programme is to produce an Ulul Albab generation which possesses three characteristics which are Quranik, Ensiklopedik and Ijtihadik. Students in this programme are required to memorize 30 constituents of the Quran and understand the concept of reading, remember, understand, think, practice and disseminate. The target of memorization is 30 juz' Al-Quran in a 3-year period.

Apart from producing Al-Quran generation, Ulul Albab programme also seeks to develop encyclopedic generation. According to Idris (2008), encyclopedic generations are those who acquire various disciplines (multidisciplinary) and various types of language (multilingual) as well as highly skilled and become as a key source of reference to the community. In the pursuit of materializing encyclopedic generation, students are required to learn other languages such as Japanese and Mandarin.

Apart from that, in this era of globalization, technology in general and the Information & Communication Technology (ICT) in particular have become one of the significant tools in enhancing teaching and learning process. Therefore, students are also equipped with the most recent ICT resources and multimedia facilities to assist their learning process. Idris (2008) asserted that ijtihadik education could be defined as an educational process that is able to produce intellectuals and Muslim scientist who are creative, determined and willing to try new things and generate new ideas for the betterment of mankind. In addition, ijtihadik generations are able to think and make correct judgment and capable in solving crisis faced by the society. With the intention of producing ijtihadik generations, students are encouraged to take parts in extra co-curricular activities in order to enhance the character, intellect and physical development of students. Additionally, the Ulul Albab programme is also integrating three main extra-curricular activities; horseback riding, swimming, and archery. Figure 1 illustrates the whole concept of Ulul Albab programme.

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Figure 1. The Ulul Albab Curriculum Model

After five years of implementation of the Ulul Albab programme in MRSM Kota Putra, there is a need to evaluate the effectiveness of the Ulul Albab programme in producing professional experts, entrepreneurs and technocrats that are well versed in Quran as well as portraying and practicing the values of Islam. Therefore, this study aims to explore Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) stakeholders’ expectations towards students’ sahsiah at MRSM Kota Putra.

1.1 Responsive Evaluation Model: Determination of Stakeholder Expectation

Evaluation of curriculum is crucial to determine whether the existing curriculum should be revised, maintained or replaced, help refine instruction and learning, and decide whether the existing managerial organization of the programme should be sustained or restructured (Ornstein & Hunkins, 2009). In order to holistically understand and evaluate the success of the curriculum, a responsive evaluation model was adopted in this study. Responsive evaluation model is based explicitly on the assumption that the concerns of the stakeholders, those for whom the evaluation, is crucial in determining the evaluation issues. According to Guba & Lincoln (1989), stakeholders could be defined as “persons with some common characteristics (administrators, instructors, students, sponsors) who have a stake in the performance (outcome or impact) of the programme being evaluated” (Curran et al., 2003). A responsive evaluation explores the expectations of the programme stakeholders and those expectations are used in evaluating the merit and worth of the educational programme as well as become the basis for the formulation of standards and criteria for the programme that is being evaluated (Curran et al., 2003). Therefore, an evaluation of the stakeholders’ expectation on the Ulul Albab curriculum is desirable. There are eight steps in conducting responsive evaluation model. In the context of this study, the researcher only adopted the first two steps of the model; (a) the evaluator first met with the clients, staff, and audiences to gain insights of their perspectives on the educational programme and (b) evaluator drew on such discussions and the analysis of any document to decide the scope of the evaluation project (Glatthorn, 1987). The steps of responsive evaluation model are illustrated in Figure 2 below.

ALLS 5(1):12-20, 2014 15

Figure 2. Responsive Evaluation Steps

Stake (1967, 1975, 1976) in Chafel (1981) proposes that an educational evaluation is effective when it is responsive towards the concerns that exist in the minds of the various audiences participating in a programme including stakeholders, school administrators, practitioners, and students. Stake has argued that evaluation results should be more relevant- “more relevant to what is of importance, is happening in learning, in teaching, in administration; more relevant to the concerns of participants and audiences of a particular programme.” (Gallagher, 1976). Stakeholders play an important role in curriculum evaluation. Since they have a stake in the evaluation, their perspectives, interests and expectations need to be taken into account in order to increase the likelihood of the evaluation findings to be accepted and acted upon. Feedback, recommendations, critique and advice from stakeholders will improve the content and implementation of the curriculum so as to meet the expectation of the stakeholders as well as the needs of the learners. Involving diverse stakeholders during programme evaluation will also deepen the researcher's understanding of the social and political contexts affecting the programme. By doing so, the researcher will become aware of the social and political contexts that will likely have implications on the programme and the evaluation. Collaboration with stakeholders during the evaluation will give the researcher access to a broad range of knowledge, from statistical methods to cultural understandings of the programme (United States Department of Health and Human Services Centeres for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011). 1.2 Spirituality and Sahsiah In Islamic perspective, spirituality is viewed as "the linking of actions to the purpose of life" (Adnan, 2009). Essentially, the main purpose in life for Muslims is to worship and seek the pleasure of Allah in our actions, therefore, spirituality in this sense is linking the actions of an individual to the purpose of their life. Hence, all actions undertaken with the sole intention to draw nearer to Allah are considered spiritual because they link action with the purposes of life. Additionally, Muslims must make sure that their actions are always in accordance to the commands and prohibitions of Allah in order to attain His pleasure. Several studies suggest spiritual and religious involvements as important dimensions that influence adolescents’ development. This is supported by Gallup and Bezilla who reported that 95% of American adolescents believed in God (Shek, 2012). Meanwhile, another study carried out by Bibby (2006) in Shek (2012) discovered that 75% of the respondents regarded themselves as members of a religion, 60% viewed spirituality as important, and 48% indicated

ALLS 5(1):12-20, 2014 16 that they had spiritual needs. These findings are consistent with a research conducted by Astin et al. (2005), who found that among 112, 232 freshmen 77% of them regarded themselves as “spiritual beings” and approximately 80% of them acknowledged that they had interest in spirituality. Based from a data collected from a study conducted by Benson & Roehlkepartain (2008) indicated that most young people view spiritual development as an important part of their lives. The literature cited above repeatedly suggests that spirituality plays a huge role in adolescent's development. There may be a relationship between spirituality and students’ character building as several studies have suggested that religious people tend to avoid behaviors that are often regarded as undisciplined and harmful to their well-being (Jeynes, 2002). A number of researches reveal that religiously committed teens are less likely to become involved in social problem including drug and alcohol abuse (Bahr, Hawks, & Wang, 1993; Brownfield & Sorenson, 1991; Nylander, Tung, & Xu, 1996). Other studies also found that religiously committed teens are less likely to engage in sexual behavior or become pregnant while they are still teenagers (Beck, Cole, & Hammond, 1991; Holman & Harding, 1996; Miller & Olson, 1988) cited in Jeyness (2002). Numerous authors have pointed the role of spirituality and religious values in contributing to positive moral behaviors and attitudes. For example, Donahue & Benson (1995) conducted a study on the relationship between religiousness and adolescent well-being and result indicated that there was a positive association between adolescent religiosity and presence of prosocial values and behavior. The religious adolescents in the study were found to acquire good personality such as helping others and volunteering than were their less religious peers. Apart from that, the study also revealed a negative relationship between religiousness and tendency to commit suicide, substance abuse, premature sexual involvement and delinquency among the adolescents. The study also suggested the need to integrate religious programmes in the society in the pursuit of developing an ideal and healthy community. The findings from previous researches cited above indicate that spiritual aspect is a major factor in influencing character and moral development. 1.3 Research Theoretical Framework The theoretical framework of this study was a combination of both Responsive Evaluation Model and Ulul Albab curriculum model. Focus was given on determining the sahsiah expectations through teaching and learning process from the four main MARA stakeholders; former MARA Chairman, Director of MARA Secondary Education Division, ex principal of Imtiaz school in Kuala Besut, and ex principal of MRSM Ulul Albab Kota Putra. The three main components of Ulul Albab programme portrayed in the theoretical framework act as scope of discussion for this study. Any expectations derived from the stakeholders that are beyond the aspects of Quranik, Ensiklopedik, and Ijtihadik will not be taken into consideration. Figure 3 illustrates the theoretical framework of this study.

Figure 3. Research Theoretical Framework.

2. Research Methodology A qualitative case study was undertaken to investigate the expectations of MARA stakeholders on the Ulul Albab curriculum at MRSM Kota Putra. Through this approach, it allows the researcher to discover the social realities in the natural settings. Qualitative researchers believe that human behaviour is always bound to the context in which it occurs and thus, behaviour need to be studied holistically in order to obtain more complete pictures of the situation. (Hong, 2007). This concurs with the characteristic of qualitative research emphasized by Ornstein & Hunkins (2009), "humanistic evaluators argue for a more holistic approach to evaluation, one that provides detailed portraits of the situations being evaluated". By employing qualitative methods in this educational research, it enables the researcher to investigate the stakeholders' beliefs, priorities, perspectives and their expectations of the programme. Humanistic

ALLS 5(1):12-20, 2014 17 evaluators recognize that individuals have different values, experiences, and abilities and thus, possess different perceptions of "reality". The intention was to capture a glimpse into this reality and to gain insights into 'what is going-on' during the implementation process. This is in line with Bogdan & Biklen (2003, p. 42) who emphasized that qualitative research is "naturalistic, inductive and concern with process and meaning". Through discussion with the stakeholders, it enables the researcher to fully understand their reasons and beliefs in their vision of the Ulul Albab curriculum. Punch (1998, p. 150), asserts that "qualitative research aims to understand the case in depth, and in its natural setting, recognizing its complexity and its context". Similarly Green & Bricki (2007) affirm that qualitative research aims to answer questions about the 'what', 'how', or 'why' of a phenomenon rather than 'how many' or 'how much', which are answered by quantitative approach. Merriam (2002, p. 6) also states that "qualitative research attempts to understand and make sense of phenomena from the participant's perspective". Therefore, in order to gain insights and understand how a community or individuals perceive a particular issue, qualitative methods are the most appropriate. The participants for this research were selected through purposive sampling technique. Four MARA stakeholders were purposely selected based on their role in conceptualizing and implementing the Ulul Albab programme in MRSM Kota Putra. They are the former MARA Chairman, the Director of MARA Secondary Education Division, ex principal of Imtiaz school in Kuala Besut, and the exprincipal of MRSM Kota Putra. Table 1 lists the participants involved in this study, along with their roles towards the Ulul Albab programme. Full cooperation was given in a semi-structured interviews and discussions that were conducted individually. Consent was given by the four participants prior to the interviews. The stakeholders were assured that their participation is to be kept anonymous. Data collected were transcribed and analyzed using the software Atlas.ti version 7. Intensive data coding were used to obtain common themes that emerge in response to the research question. To ensure validity and reliability of data, several techniques were employed such as member checking, rich thick description, clarification of researcher bias, peer review and debriefing, and external audit. Table 1. List of participants and their roles in Ulul Albab programme in MRSM Kota Putra.

Informant 1 Informant 2 Informant 3 Informant 4

Role Conceptualising and initiating the Ulul Albab programme in MRSM Kota Putra.

Conceptualising and initiating Conceptualising and initiating the Ulul Albab programme in MRSM Kota Putra.

Implementing Conceptualising and initiating the Ulul Albab programme in MRSM Kota Putra.

Conceptualising and implementing the Ulul Albab programme.

3. Results The study found that for sahsiah expectation, two sub-themes were identified namely, (a) teaching and learning that is based on love is fundamental in fostering good akhlak, and (b) inculcation of akhlak in human capital development. Frequency percentage of statements for each sub-theme is displayed in Table 2 below to provide an overview of the main theme. Table 2. Distribution of sub-themes for sahsiah expectations

Sub-themes Number of Citations

Percentage (%)

Teaching and learning that is based on love is fundamental in fostering good akhlak Inculcation of akhlak in human capital development

9 8

53 47

3.1 Teaching and Learning that is based on Love is Fundamental in Fostering Good Akhlak The finding found that teaching and learning that is based on love is fundamental in fostering good akhlak is the dominant expectation on the Ulul Albab programme in Kota Putra. This is reflected by the statement of informant 2:

"Then I told my colleagues that if we can motivate our children, half of our problems can be solved. What do you mean by motivation? By using the approach of love, though not as perfect as Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim."

ALLS 5(1):12-20, 2014 18 Informant 2 also emphasized that teachers need to have empathy for their students and to be passionate in teaching and learning, and also committed to achievement of their students.

"Teachers do not have options, they need to use such approach. Teachers must have high empathy."

"Passion, passion in doing the work. And want to see the success of his students. Working as a teacher, a very noble profession. Not only bring happiness in the world, but also in hereafter. Useful knowledge, we can also gain the benefits."

"I think there are a lot of data that can be referred to. Students who failed in monthly examination, semester examination, trial examination ,and at the end of the day they attained grade A in add math because the elements and factors of love. Now being popularized by Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim."

Informant 1 also stressed the importance of love as a basis of education and the introduction of the concept of Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim as in his statement:

"Because of that, even in Besut, this Ulul Albab, X go and talk about how to be a good Murabbi, not just a good teacher but imparting moral values in school. Introduce love is a fundamental aspect in teaching. Introduce the concept of Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim."

"When teachers do not understand, how are the students going to understand? Teachers themselves do not understand. So it's a process. I'm talking about the pedagogy of Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim where the element of love is embedded in the education system. You talk about imparting knowledge, you do not talk about imparting values. You don’t talk about thinking culture. You don't talk about culture of education in universities. It cannot be changed."

"You then read Al-Fatihah. It's there again, you know. And God do not put there for no reasons. So it's based on love. If it's based on love, you can get things on because you do it out of love, you teach out of love. It's very fundamental, you know. Because it's there. Very fundamental. So you cannot produce good moral values without love." "You have to be good, you have to be balanced. But it's got to be based on love still. Because love is a very strong factor in akhlak."

"Passionate is not enough. Passionate is one thing. Passionate is what we are doing. But you not doing it out of love."

From the above statements, it can be concluded that the stakeholders hope that teachers will integrate the element of love in the teaching and learning process. This is the case because a good teacher should not solely teach academic subjects but also to develop a knowledgeable person with high moral values. 3.2 Inculcation of Akhlak in Human Capital Development The findings show that inculcation of akhlak in human capital development recorded the second highest percentage of the stakeholders' expectations on the Ulul Albab programme in Kota Putra. This is supported by the statement of informant 1:

“Now I’m putting akhlak as important element in the whole development of the school." "But is it wholesome? That’s the question. Is it integrated? Approaching integrated personalities."

Informant 2 also hopes that Albab Ulul programme is able to produce ideal students in terms of academic and sahsiah as in his statement:

"It means that we want a package that is very perfect to me to provide students who are competent in the future." "We also want to produce human capital for the future. So from the aspects of religion, I suppose. So my personal view is I'm for, for this is Ulul Albab."

ALLS 5(1):12-20, 2014 19 "Nowadays they interact with each other, isn't it? And then we have 21st century skills and environmental skills. So it has to do with humanity, talking about environmental, we want to have students who are responsible of this college, its hygiene, room and toilet. It seems insignificant, but it will be able to shape good character among the students."

In addition, he also hopes that Quran memorization in Ulul Albab programme could develop individuals who possess ideal sahsiah, which is an important element in the formation of human capital. This is evidenced by his statement:

"As a result of this programme, it will produce students with noble character." "Quran memorization is not the only aspect in Ulul Albab syllabus. The students are required to learn Arabic. They have that understanding. So when they understand that, internal changes may occur, which in turn, will produce good character. During this 21st century, we cannot neglect character building aspect."

By memorizing the Quran, it is hoped that it will produce students who have good morals and character. This is proven by the statement of informant 3:

"So we hope that these students will become good persons by memorizing the Quran." From the above statements, it can be concluded that through Ulul Albab programme, the stakeholder group hopes that the programme could inculcate good akhlak and sahsiah among the students and produce students who are not only knowledgeable and competent but also skilled in the field of religion based on the Quran and Sunnah. 4. Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendation Fundamentally, through the Ulul Albab programme, the stakeholders hope that the programme could inculcate good akhlak and sahsiah among the students. This is the case because the stakeholders believe that the main intention of the programme is to develop an Ulul Albab generation who are not only knowledgeable and skilled but also possess good qualities namely devoted, noble, responsible and committed to religion, nation and state. Quran memorization in Ulul Albab programme is expected to be able to develop individuals who possess ideal sahsiah, which is an important element in the formation of human capital. Through Quran memorization, it could increase spirituality (Salasiah, Rosmawati & Fariza, 2012). This is supported by a recent study conducted by Jeynes (2009) which demonstrated a positive connection between spirituality and students' school behavior. A study conducted by King & Furrow (2004) also demonstrates that having strong religious and spirituality beliefs not only seems to help protect adolescents from problem behaviour, but it also seems to promote prosocial behaviour. Moreover, the finding is consistent with the result of the previous study carried out by Donahue and Benson (1995) whereby the religious adolescents were more likely to value helping others and volunteering than were their less religious peers. From the review it is evident that the role of spirituality and religious values is pertinent in contributing positive moral behaviors and attitudes. The stakeholders also hope that teachers will integrate the element of love in the teaching and learning process. According to Ministry of Education (1992), love is one of the 16 values stipulated in national curriculum framework. Abd. Rahim (1993) asserts that love is one of the important elements in human's life as it could drive society towards social stability. In addition, love plays a huge role in nurturing students' positive behaviours, as a result from their emotional stability. Maslow (1954) emphasizes that without love one will feel lonely because human's desire is to love and to be loved. Therefore, inculcating love in teaching and learning process will strengthen students' emotion and ultimately develop students' moral values. Overall, this study provides feedback on the stakeholders’ expectations of the Ulul Albab programme in MRSM. MRSM Ulul Albab educational programme is designed to produce professional experts, entrepreneurs and technocrats that are well versed in the field of religion-based Quran and Sunnah as Ulul Albab generation. The main objective of this programme is to develop Ulul Albab generations who are balanced and harmonious, based on a firm belief in and devotion to God and live according to the Quran and Sunnah. In order to evaluate whether the programme succeeds in producing Ulul Albab community who have creative and critical thinking abilities and at the same time possess ideal personality, an evaluation of the stakeholders’ expectation of the programme needs to be conducted first to see whether their expectations are being met. Representing their needs and interests throughout the implementation of the programme is fundamental to ensure the programme's success. *The authors would like to acknowledge Secondary Education Division and The Research and Innovation Unit MARA for awarding the grant that enabled us to carry out the research. * akhlak: with moralistic values * sahsiah: personality

ALLS 5(1):12-20, 2014 20 References Abd. Rahim Abd. Rashid. (1993). Pendidikan Nilai Merentasi Kurikulum KBSM. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Adnan, K, (2009). Islam and Spirituality. Retrieved on March 7th 2013 from http://www.khilafah.com/index.php/concepts/belief/5660-islam-and-spirituality- Astin, A. W., Astin, H. S., Lindholm, J. A., Bryant, A, Szelenyi, K., Calderone, S. (2005). The Spiritual Life of College Students: A National Study of College Students' Search for Meaning and Purpose. Higher Education Research Institute. Benson, P. L., Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2008). Spiritual Development: A Missing Priority in Youth Development. New Directions for Youth Development. 2008 (118), p. 13-28. Bricki, N & Green, J. (2007). A Guide to Using Qualitative Research Methodology. Retrieved on September 1st 2013 from http://evaluation.msf.at/fileadmin/evaluation/files/documents/resources_MSF/MSF_Qualitative_Methods.pdf Chafel, A. J. (1981). A Preschool's Experience with Stake's Responsive Evaluation Model. p. 307-317. Che Noraini, H. & Langgulung, H. (2008). Islamic Religious Curriculum in Muslim Countries: The Experiences of Indonesia and Malaysia. Bulletin of Education & Research. 30(1), p. 1-19. Curran, V., Christopher, J., Lemire, F., Collins, A., & Barret, B. (2003). Application of a Responsiv Evaluation Approach in Medical Education. Medical Education, 37(3), 256-266. Retrieved on September 1st 2013 from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2923.2003.01442.x/pdf. Donahue, M. J. & Benson, P. L. (1995). Religion and the Well-Being of Adolescents. Journal of SocialSciences. 51(2), p. 145-160. Retrieved on May 13th 2013 from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01328.x/abstract. Fukofuka, S. (2007). The impact of spirituality on academic performance. International Forum,10(2), 35-47. Gallagher, E. R. (1976). Responsive Evaluation: A Personal Reaction. Studies in Educational Evaluation. 2(1), p. 33-34. Glatthorn, A. A. (1987). Curriculum leadership. New York: Harper Collins. Hong, S. (2007). An Evaluation of Teaching of Science in English in a Rural School in Sabah.Curriculum Evaluation. Retrieved on September 1st 2013 from http://hrd.apec.org/images/4/4e/68.3.pdf Idris, J. (2008). Programme Ulul Albab: Ulul Albab - Misi Menjana Kepimpinan Muslim Global. Laman Web Idris Bin Jusoh. Retrieved on February 28th 2013 from http://www.silveromedia.com.my/idrisjusoh/?page_id=501 Jeynes, W. H. (2009). The Relationship between Biblical Literacy, Academic Achievement, and School Behavior Among Christian and Public-School Students. Journal of Research on Christian Education (April 2013), 37–41. Jeynes, W. H. (2002). A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Attending Religious Schools and Religiosity on Black and Hispanic Academic Achievement. Education and Urban Society. 35(1), p. 27-49. Retrieved on February 28th 2013 from http://eus.sagepub.com/content/35/1/27.refs.html King, P. E. & Furrow, J. L. (2004). Religion as a Resource for Positive Youth Development: Religion, Social Capital, and Moral Outcomes. Developmental Psychology, 40(5), 703–13. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.40.5.703 Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper & Row Publishers. Merriam, S. B. (2002). Qualitative Research in Practice: Examples for Discussion and Analysis. (1st Edition). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Ministry of Education. (1992). Pukal Latihan Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah: Falsafah Pendidikan Negara. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. Ornstein, A. C., & Hunkins, F. P. (2009). Curriculum Foundations, Principles, and Issues. (5th Edition). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. Othman, T. (2013). Atlas.ti. Pengenalan Analisis Data Kualitatif. Cetakan Pertama. MPWS Rich Resources. Punch, K. F. (1998). Introduction to Social Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches. London, UK: SAGE Publications Ltd. Sabri, M. S. (2009). Generasi Ulul Albab Segunung Harapan Seteguh Gagasan. Shah Alam. Karisma Publications Sdn. Bhd. Salasiah H. H, Rosmawati, M. R, Fariza, M. S. (2012). Role of Spirituality Aspects in the Learning Process of Islamic Studies Student. The Social Sciences, 7(4). p. 625-629. Shek, D. T. (2012). Spirituality as a Positive Youth Development Construct: A Conceptual Review. The Scientific World Journal. Retrieved on May 13th 2013 from http://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/2012/458953/ United States Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2011). Introduction to Program Evaluation for Public Health Programs: A Self-Study Guide. Atlanta,GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved on September 1st 2013 from http://www.cdc.gov/eval/guide/CDCEvalManual.pdf Wan Mariana, W. H & Mohd Shafiee, H. (2012). Penerapan Konsep Ulul Albab dalam Pendidikan.



Classroom Assessment [A Short Communication]

Angela Khristin Brown


Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.21 Received: 08/01/2014 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.21 Accepted: 22/02/2014

The importance of benefiting with a top notch education depends on the value of presentation of the lesson offered. A good instructor will develop his/her curriculum on the basis of the academic performance of his/her students. A good instructor knows how to manipulate speech to develop a positive communication to his/her students. A lack of communication will result from an inactive audience. An educational climate is the key to determining the learning progress in a class. The curriculum in a classroom should have modern technology. Imagine gathering the attention from every student. A student’s progress is mediated with how an instructor verbally communicates through action. The usage of modern technology in the classroom will improve a student’s academic performance. Replace the pen and pad with a lap tap to understand how to improve comprehension in the classroom. No longer shall an instructor teach on a monitor; but, to use the internet, PowerPoint, word, excel explanation from a key pad and observe the student's progress. Library technology is an intricate method every student needs to conduct research. Viable research is conducted on the web. With the proper training to write a academic paper, a student can research accredited magazines, news articles, journal articles, books, references, citations that are accurate and current. With the right technology, an instructor can apply track changes to correct a student paper. An instructor can run any student's paper through library resources to verify how plagiarized a student's paper is. Academic research can be used in subjects like business, science, literature, etc. Once the students learn how to manipulate words, communication will improve his/her writing performance. This is the "media age" generation through the advancement of computer technology. Test can be taken on smart phones. I pads can be used to download ebooks. Note books can be used to take class notes. The instructor can use the internet to project a movie or presentation. Modern technology can be used towards an instructor's advantage as a tool to communicate a "learning experience." This is the "digital age." We must use it to our advantage. We are the environment that surrounds us. Progress is what mediates our learning climate. If we take advantage of progress, students will adapt to learn the skills necessary to transcend in the next learning generations to come. By using technology, we are dictating our future performance to outsource other nations. It all started with a simple "idea" an it is with that idea that made a difference by touching a life.



Language Learner Beliefs In An English As A Lingua Franca (ELF) Context

Bakhtiar Naghdipour

Department of English Language Teaching, Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus Email: [email protected]


Abstract

With the advent of learner-centered approaches to second or foreign language teaching, the research on learners’ beliefs or what learners bring into the classroom in terms of their prior knowledge and experiences, their expectations, and their attitudes towards different aspects of language learning has gained momentum. Learners may, for example, develop core beliefs about language learning that undergo change or otherwise resist change when moving to a new learning context. This study examines overseas Iranian undergraduate students’ (n = 160) beliefs about language learning in an English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) context and investigates the impact of the old and new learning environments on shaping or affecting these beliefs. The data form a survey and a semi-structured interview revealed that the students’ previous learning experiences and the socio-political factors of the old learning context affected the shaping of the trajectory of their belief development. The results also suggested that the new learning environment hardly affected the students’ core beliefs about language learning and in some cases even consolidated them. The paper concludes with a discussion of the main findings and offers several implications for further research and practice.

Keywords: Beliefs about language learning; learning environment; ELF; Iran

1. Introduction With the growth of learner-centered approaches in second or foreign language teaching, researchers have focused on investigating learners’ factors such as their beliefs about language learning in order to find out how belief matches or mismatches between teachers and learners could affect learners’ participation in and contribution to their learning. Indeed, language learners enter a program with a wide range of beliefs about learning tasks and nature of language learning (Wenden, 1991), which could affect their expectations, commitment and satisfaction with their learning experience (Horwitz, 1988). Learners’ beliefs about language learning refer to the learners’ notions, perceived ideas, insights, perspectives, philosophies, opinions and assumptions about the nature of language learning (Horwitz, 1987; Hosenfeld, 1978; Wenden, 1987, 1991). The debate over learners’ beliefs in academic circles arose with the pioneering work of Horwitz (1985) and Wendon (1986). Since then, many researchers have studied the debilitative and facilitative impacts of learners’ beliefs on their success or achievement in language learning (Barcelos, 2003; Barcelos & Kalaja, 2011; Horwitz, 1999). Originally, these beliefs were associated with learners’ meta-cognitive knowledge and their preferences for language learning strategies (Horwitz, 1987, 1988; Wenden, 1986, 1987). Later, Horwitz (1999) reiterated that insights from learners’ beliefs might be useful to educators and language teachers to understand how different learners approach language learning. More recently, however, research has focused on the interplay or interface between learners’ beliefs and other factors affecting language learning (Barcelos & Kalaja, 2011). Learning context is one of these variables that can influence the development or change in learners’ beliefs (Murphey, et al., 2009; Ning, 2008). Previous research has examined learners’ beliefs as they interacted with different learning environments such as English as a Second Language (ESL) (Amuzie & Winke, 2009; Tanaka & Ellis, 2003), English as a Foreign Language (EFL) (Aragão, 2011; Kunt, 1997; Navarro & Thornton, 2011; Peng, 2011; Yang, 1992) and ELF contexts (Baker, 2009; Kaypak & Ortaçtepe, 2014). The current study intends to expand the literature on learners’ beliefs by examining the most common beliefs about language learning among overseas Iranian students, and investigating the extent to which a new learning environment can affect these beliefs. The findings hope to add to our knowledge of the development of a belief trajectory in foreign or second language (L2) learners in order to better make sense of the ways they approach the instructional or learning activities in our classrooms. 2. Literature review Since the introduction of sociocultural theory to investigating beliefs about language learning, it has been argued that beliefs are meditational means that can lead to enhancing or hampering learning in language learners (Barcelos & Kalaja, 2011). However, beliefs have been found to be complex and dynamic (Mercer, 2011), contradictory, fluctuating (Peng, 2011), affected by contextual affordances (Amuzie & Winke, 2009; Barcelos & Kalaja, 2011) such as micro- and

ALLS 5(1):22-30, 2014 23 macro-political contexts and discourses (Gao, 2010), and related to emotions (Aragão, 2011). Learners’ beliefs could also be affected by teachers, friends, and significant others who can influence the way they think, feel, or make sense of the learning process (Navarro and Thornton, 2011). Yet, these beliefs may change as learners reflect on their actions and practices (Borg, 2011; De Costa, 2011), or when they move to a new learning context (Kaypak & Ortaçtepe, 2014). Although Horwitz’s (1985) original concern with learners’ beliefs was to bring to light the negative effects of learners’ beliefs on the amount or quality of their language learning, the recent research has attempted to find out about the sources of these beliefs and the development of belief system in language learners (Barcelos & Kalaja, 2011; Negueruela-Azarola, 2011). Horwitz (1999), who reviewed studies that administered Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) to language learners from diverse cultural backgrounds, reported that learners’ beliefs varied according to their cultural backgrounds and previous learning experiences. She further argued that some preconceived beliefs are likely to hamper the learners’ scope of strategy use. For example, some language learners believed that they should not say anything while learning another language until they could say it correctly, and some believed that if beginning learners were permitted to make errors at the early stages of the learning process, it would be difficult for them to speak correctly later. These beliefs were assumed to prevent students from adapting to a communicative approach to language learning or using functional language learning strategies. Wenden (1987) also argued that learners’ beliefs could determine their approach to language learning and, in particular, their use of meta-cognitive strategies. The research on learners’ beliefs also extended its domain to EFL contexts, where different scholars investigated the relationship between learners’ beliefs and other constructs and variables such as motivation, self-efficacy, anxiety, etc. For example, Yang (1992) discovered that Chinese learners’ beliefs affected their use of learning strategies, and in turn their successful use of strategies enhanced their self-efficacy. In another study on Korean students, Truitt (1995) found that while the participants demonstrated low levels of self-efficacy, they showed strong instrumental motivation to learn English. Additionally, Kunt (1997) reported that Turkish learners placed a high value on grammar and vocabulary, and they had instrumental rather than integrative motivation towards learning English. Diab (2006) also identified a variety of beliefs held by Lebanese learners of English and French languages, attributing these beliefs to the larger political and socio-cultural context surrounding the foreign language education in that country. Nevertheless, the relationship between learners’ beliefs and the learning environment has recently attracted researchers’ attention, as an increasing number of students are moving overseas to pursue their studies in different educational institutions in ELF contexts, where speakers of different first languages use English as the medium of communication (Seidlhofer, 2011) or even more than a means of communication (Edwards, 2010). In other words, language learners, in particular at tertiary level, have to write, present, share or publish their work besides communicating with others in this common language. Different researchers have so far investigated the likely impacts of study abroad programs in different ESL and ELF learning contexts on learners’ beliefs about language learning (see Amuzie & Winke, 2009; Baker, 2009; Kaypak & Ortaçtepe, 2014; Tanaka & Ellis, 2003; Yang & Kim, 2011). However, there is scarcity of research on the beliefs of those learners who wish to pursue their higher education in an ELF context for a period of four or more years. Because learners come to such contexts with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, language teachers have to move through an ordeal to help them abandon some of their misconceptions about language learning to better implement more innovative instructional strategies in their classes. This study is therefore an attempt to find out about those beliefs that could be conducive to language learning, as well those misconceptions that should be kept at bay to help language learners succeed in an era of disciplinary diversity and use of English for an array of purposes. 3. Method Because learners’ beliefs about language learning can affect the ways learners interact with different learning activities, finding about the types of these beliefs could be the first step in accommodating learners’ needs and challenges in learning another language. In line with this need, a flurry of studies have been conducted on learners’ beliefs with learners from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds. However, no study has been found studying overseas Iranian students’ beliefs about language learning in an ELF context. The aim of this study is, therefore, to investigate the most common beliefs about language learning among these students and to examine the impact of the new learning environment on these beliefs. The following two research questions guide the design of this study. 1. What beliefs about language learning do overseas Iranian students hold? 2. In what ways can the new learning environment influence these students’ beliefs? 3.1 Setting This study was conducted at an international university in North Cyprus, where Turkish is spoken as the official language. However, university students from more than 60 countries are using English as their main medium of communication and education in this ELF context. The majority of students in this university, however, come from Turkey or Middle Eastern countries such as Iran and Arabic countries. Students who enroll at this university have to take a proficiency test or submit an internationally recognized English proficiency certificate to enter their desired program. Students who fail to offer this certificate or fail the proficiency test must take intensive English courses at English Preparatory School for one or more semesters.

ALLS 5(1):22-30, 2014 24 3.2 Participants The participants of this study were 160 (100 males and 60 females) overseas Iranian undergraduates students who passed the English proficiency test and started their program or failed the test and studied at English Preparatory School for one semester. That is, the participants were all first-year university students who, at the time of the study, had stayed in this context for at least 4 months. The participants’ age ranged from 18 to 29 years. They were all born in Iran and were native speakers of Persian. Approximately 40% of the participants had the experience of studying English at private language institutes back home in Iran. 3.3 Data collection instrument and procedures The BALLI survey (Horwitz, 1988) was translated into Persian and administered to the participants. Previous research in different contexts proved the reliability and validity of this instrument in investigating learners’ beliefs (Hong 2006; Kim-Yoon, 2000; Kunt, 1997; Kuntz, 1996; Truitt, 1995; Yang, 1992). This survey consists of 34 items measuring learners’ beliefs about language learning in five major areas: (1) foreign language aptitude, (2) the difficulty of language learning, (3) the nature of language learning, (4) learning and communication strategies, and (5) motivation and expectations. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the students’ responses to different items on this survey. The results were then tabulated and presented according to the five major belief categories in order to respond to the first research question. In addition, twenty students volunteered to participate in a semi-structured interview. After analyzing the data from the BALLI, those beliefs (items 1, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 18, 20, 29, 31, 32 and 33) that were strongly supported (with mean score +4) by students were selected and used as a guide to design the interview protocol. The data from the semi-structured interview were used to answer the second research question, which addressed the extent to which a learning context can affect learners’ beliefs. The volunteered students were interviewed individually in a friendly manner to ensure they express their opinions with the least possible stress or anxiety. The interview was conducted in Persian and the data were digitally recorded, translated into English, and content analyzed to extract the most frequent themes and responses. These themes were then triangulated with the survey results and discussed in the light of the literature reviewed. 4. Results RQ1. What beliefs about language learning do overseas Iranian students hold? In order to respond to the first research question, the analysis of students’ responses to the BALLI items was carried out, and the results were grouped and reported under different categories. Table 1 shows the results of students’ opinions on the beliefs about the difficulty of language learning. Almost a majority of students believed, “Some languages are easier to learn than others” (item 3). In addition, an overwhelming majority strongly agreed or agreed that they would learn to speak English very well (item 5). However, they disagreed, “It is easier to speak than understand a foreign language” (item 25), and only one third agreed, “It is easier to read and write English than to speak and understand it” (item 34). Table 1. The difficulty of language learning (a)

Items Percentage in a five-point Likert scale

Means and SD

SA A N D SD M SD

3. Some languages are easier to learn than others. 20 48 17 15 0 3.7 0.9 5. I believe that I will learn to speak English very well. 43 50 5 0 2 4.3 0.8 25. It is easier to speak than understand a foreign language. 10 10 37 35 8 2.8 1.0 34. It is easier to read and write English than to speak and understand it. 7 25 40 28 0 3.1 0.9

Notes: A five-point Likert scale are shortened as: SA (strongly agree), A (agree), N (neutral), D (disagree), SD (strongly disagree). Table 2 reports the results of students’ responses to two other items on the difficulty of language learning. While more than half of the students rated English as a language of medium difficulty, less than one third considered it to be an easy language (item 4). As a result of viewing English as a language of medium difficulty or an easy language, most of the students believed that it would take less than two years to become proficient in speaking English if they spent one hour a day (item 15). Table 2. The difficulty of language learning (b)

Items 1 2 3 4 5 M SD

4. English is: 1) a very difficult language, 2) a difficult language, 3) a language of medium difficulty, 4) an easy language, 5) a very easy language.

0 7 58 30 5 2.7 0.7

15. If someone spent one hour a day learning a language, how long would it take them to speak the language very well: 1) less than a year, 2) 1-2 years, 3) 3-5 years, 4) 5-10 years, 5) you can’t learn a language in a hour a day.

28 40 10 7 15 3.5 1.3

ALLS 5(1):22-30, 2014 25 Table 3 illustrates the results of students’ responses to items on language learning aptitude. The results indicated that a large number of students endorsed the superiority of children over adults in language learning (item 1) and believed, “Everybody can learn to speak a foreign language” (item 33). Additionally, a majority believed, “Some people have a special ability for learning a foreign language” (item 2). The respondents also opined, “People from my country are good at learning foreign languages” (item 6) and supported the belief “It is easier for someone who already speaks a foreign language to learn another language” (item 10). In addition, about a half of the respondents believed, “I have a special ability for learning foreign languages (item 16). The same percentage also agreed, “People who speak more than one language are very intelligent (item 30). However, while students disagreed that there is a difference between foreign learning aptitude and the ability in learning mathematics or science (item 11), they remained undecided about the idea that “women are better than men at learning foreign languages” (item 19). Table 3. Foreign language aptitude


Means and SD

SA A N D SD M SD

1. It is easier for children than adults to learn a foreign language. 40 48 7 5 0 4.2 0.8 2. Some people have a special ability for learning foreign languages. 20 58 15 5 2 3.8 0.9 6. People from my country are good at learning foreign languages. 37 48 13 2 0 4.2 0.7 10. It is easier for someone who already speaks a foreign language to

learn another. 18 55 15 12 0 3.7 0.9

11. People who are good at mathematics or science are not good at learning foreign languages.

10 0 30 38 22 2.3 1.1

16. I have a special ability for learning foreign languages. 20 33 45 2 0 3.7 0.8 19. Women are better than men at learning foreign languages. 5 5 73 12 5 2.9 0.7 30. People who speak more than one language are very intelligent. 15 38 33 12 2 3.5 0.1 33. Everybody can learn to speak a foreign language. 38 50 10 2 0 4.2 0.7

Table 4 presents the results of students’ responses to the beliefs about the nature of language learning. The results revealed that students strongly endorsed, “It is easier to learn a foreign language in a country where that language is spoken” (item 12). However, students varied in their opinions about learning different components of language learning and their use of learning strategies. While a majority rated vocabulary (item 17) and grammar (item 23) as the most important parts of language learning, they did not strongly agree with translation as the most important strategy in language learning (item 28). Students, however, remained mostly undecided about the necessity of knowing about English-speaking culture in order to speak English (item 8) and about the similarity or difference between language learning and other subjects (item 27). Table 4. The nature of language learning


Means and SD

SA A N D SD M SD

8. It is necessary to know about English-speaking culture in order to speak English.

18 17 45 15 5 3.2 1.0

12. It is easier to learn a foreign language in a country where that language is spoken.

75 20 0 3 2 4.6 0.7

17. The most important part of learning a foreign language is learning vocabulary words.

17 63 7 13 0 3.8 0.8

23. The most important part of learning a foreign language is learning the grammar.

12 45 10 33 0 3.3 1.0

27. Learning a foreign language is different from learning other academic subjects.

7 15 68 10 0 3.2 0.7

28. The most important part of learning a foreign language is learning how to translate from my native language.

10 28 30 27 5 3.1 1.0

Table 5 illustrates the results of students’ responses to the beliefs about learning and communication strategies. The results indicated that a majority of students disagreed with remaining silent until they can speak correctly (item 9). They

ALLS 5(1):22-30, 2014 26 were also in favor of practicing with CDs and videos (item 26), as well as speaking with excellent pronunciation (item 7). In addition, they endorsed the beliefs on the use of communication strategies such as practicing English with native speakers (item 13) and guessing the unknown words (item 14). Students also strongly supported repeating and practicing to learn English (item 18). However, while approximately half of the students reported that they were bold enough to speak English with others (item 21), only one third agreed with the error correction at the beginning of language learning (item 22). Table 5. Beliefs about learning and communication strategies


Means and SD

SA A N D SD M SD

7. It is important to speak English with an excellent pronunciation. 55 33 12 0 0 4.4 0.7 9. You shouldn’t say anything in a foreign language until you can say it

correctly. 0 2 12 43 43 1.7 0.8

13. I enjoy practicing English with the native speakers of English I meet. 43 42 10 5 0 4.2 0.8 14. It’s ok to guess if you don’t know a word in English. 17 63 10 10 0 3.8 0.8 18 It is important to repeat and practice a lot. 78 22 0 0 0 4.7 .04 21 I feel timid speaking English with other people. 5 33 15 35 13 2.8 1.1 22 If beginning students are permitted to make errors in English, it will

be difficult for them to speak correctly later on. 17 25 33 23 2 3.3 1.0

26 It is important to practice language learning CDs and videos. 40 45 8 5 2 4.1 0.9

Finally, Table 6 shows the results of students’ responses to the beliefs about their motivations and expectations of language learning. The results indicated that a majority of students had both instrumental and integrative motivations towards learning English. For example, almost all students were in favor of knowing native speakers of English (item 32) and believed that learning English would bring them better job or career opportunities (item 29). As a result, an overwhelming majority wanted to learn to speak English well (item 31). They also reported, “People in my country feel that is important to speak English” (item 20) and reported the need to learn English so that they could understand native speakers better (item 24). In general, the results from students’ responses to different items on this survey revealed that they held positive beliefs about language learning and were confident about their ability and talent to learn to speak English. However, they were ill-informed about many realities about language leaning such as the difficulties of different skills and sub-skills (e.g., items 23, 25 & 34). Table 6. Motivation and expectations


Means and SD

SA A N D SD M SD

20. People in my country feel that is important to speak English. 23 65 10 2 0 4.0 0.6 24. I would like to learn English so that I can better understand native

speakers of English. 22 43 25 8 2 3.7 0.9

29. If I learn English well, I will have better opportunities for a good job. 65 28 5 2 0 4.5 0.7 31. I want to learn to speak English well. 73 20 5 2 0 4.6 0.8 32. I would like to get to know native speakers of English. 60 35 5 0 0 4.5 0.6

RQ2. In what ways can the new learning environment influence these students’ beliefs? Students’ responses to the interview questions corroborated the findings from the survey, suggesting the impact of both the old learning context and the new learning environment on their beliefs in different ways. Most importantly, the results indicated that the educational system and policies, as well as the socio-political and socio-economic forces of the previous learning environment seemed to have shaped students’ core beliefs, which remained, to a large extent, unchanged or consolidated under the influence of the new context. That is to say, these students perceived the learning opportunities in the new learning environment more negatively than positively. For example, the students expected their teachers to focus mainly on grammar to help them build their ability in other areas of language learning such as speaking. Resisting more learner-centered instructional or learning strategies in the new learning context, one student, for example, said:

ALLS 5(1):22-30, 2014 27 I expected the teacher to focus on grammar, but unfortunately he insisted on using games and funny activities in the class . . . I brought a grammar book from Iran, which explained everything in Persian. I used to study this book to improve my grammar.

In addition, students were concerned about their speaking ability and were looking forward to opportunities to further improve their speaking ability. They mostly associated learning English with speaking rather than with other sophisticated academic skills such as writing and reading, or sub-skills of summarizing and paraphrasing. Indeed, several students mentioned that their expectation of moving overseas was visiting a place where they could meet native speakers of English and practice their speaking skill. As a consequence of this expectation, they could hardly cope with learning challenges in the new environment. This is perhaps best reflected in one student’s comment: I think learning environment is very important. For example, if you study in America, you will learn English automatically. You don’t need to work hard . . . There aren’t many native speakers of English here. I see some Africans, but they seem to speak another language. By the same token, assuming an L2-rich context as an optimal language learning environment, one student’s interpretation of studying English in an ELF context was a situation in which a blind is leading another blind cross the street:

In my opinion, learning English from Turkish students is more like blind leading another blind cross the street. Their grammar is not bad, but most of them can’t say a sentence in English . . . They also use a combination of English and Turkish, expecting us to learn to speak Turkish rather than English.

Moreover, students reported a preference to identify with Anglo-American culture rather than regional cultures. Even, a majority preferred to learn to speak English more with American than British accent. This prompted these students to distance themselves from other language learners and their communities. One student, for example, said:

I think Iranians can learn English faster and speak English better than other nationalities here because they can pronounce everything in English. Arabs and Turkish lack this potential . . . Even our accent is different when we speak English.

Overall, the interviewees underlined the importance of accent, pronunciation, culture, and native speakerhood, as the model and goal of language learning, reflecting their belief in a folk theory that associates knowing a foreign language with an ability to speak it and identify with its culture. Because of their failure to meet these expectations, they expressed dissatisfaction with learning English in an ELF context because of the misconceptions about language learning they developed in their previous learning environment. 4.1 Discussion The present study aimed to investigate overseas Iranian students’ beliefs about language learning and to explore the impact of the new learning environment on these beliefs. The findings from the BALLI revealed that students held strong beliefs about learning English in a country where it is spoken and were motivated to speak this language well, with excellent pronunciation. In addition, they liked to meet, communicate, and know native speakers of English. They also believed that people from their country value knowing and speaking English, and have a talent for learning English. Results from students’ responses to the interview questions supported these findings, offering more insights into the sources of these beliefs and the likely reasons for their development. In particular, students did not have realistic expectations of language learning in an ELF context, and were to some extent unaware of their learning goals at a higher level of education. They commented on their interest in socializing with native speakers of English, rather than acknowledging learning English for academic purposes for which they had left their country. These unrealistic goals pushed them to the point where they became skeptic of communicating with other language learners because of their foreign accent or unacceptable pronunciation. These findings are consistent with previous research (e.g., Amuzie & Winke, 2009; Barcelos & Kalaja, 2011; Gao, 2010; Horwitz, 1999) regarding the impact of contextual affordances and micro- and macro-political contexts on the development of learners’ beliefs. These beliefs also stood as scaffolds and resources to help students interact with their new learning environment (Yang & Kim, 2011). In addition, the findings indicate several similarities and points of departure in learners’ beliefs between these students and their counterparts, such as Arab (Diab, 2006) and Turkish learners (Kunt, 1997), in similar contexts. Regardless of cultural similarities, learning or using English serves different purposes in these contexts, prompting educational authorities to craft different policies as far as English education is concerned; these policies, in turn, have thus far affected learners’ beliefs and their approach to language learning. For example, since Iran is politically and economically isolated in today’s international community, language learners have the least contact with users or native speakers of English, and therefore they have strong intrinsic motivation to learn this language in order to find out what is happening beyond the borders. By contrast, tourism is a booming industry in Turkey and Lebanon alike, and many learners have the prospect of ending up working in this industry. Thus, learners in these contexts have strong instrumental motivation to learn English because of the need to be able to communicate with others in a common language. Additionally, the findings suggest that lack of these students’ faith in other learners’ ability to help them improve their English arises from the assumption that while interaction or communication in English between students from different first language (L1) backgrounds may help them improve their communication skills, this may not specifically lead to the pushed output in case of two lower level learners. Thus, students may develop fossilized errors because of the

ALLS 5(1):22-30, 2014 28 interlocutors’ lack of confidence to give feedback on each other’s output. That’s why they used code-switching as a strategy to get their message across. However, previous research has shown that English users in ELF contexts use expressions and phrases from their L1 to express their identity (Fiedler, 2011; Pitzl, 2009), which was stronger among Turkish students in this study because they formed the majority in this context. The corpus studies also revealed that uses of figurative expressions from learners’ L1 background could not be regarded as errors; rather they are linguistic innovations used to facilitate the flow of communication (Pitzl, 2009). Although learners’ identity is fluid in ELF contexts (Kalocsai, 2009), participants in this study preferred to identify themselves with Anglo-American rather than a regional culture. Previous studies have shown that speakers will accommodate or converge with their interlocutors’ accent easily if they like them and, on the other hand, diverge from their accent if they do not like them (Babel, 2009; Mather, 2012). Thus, native-like accent can give language learners a stronger identity and sense of cultural empathy. This finding is consistent with students’ responses to the survey regarding learning English in a country where it is spoken (item 12), a preference to identify with Anglo-American culture rather than regional cultures (items 13, 24, 32), and modeling native speakers as the goal of language learning, indicated also by their concern with native-like accent and excellent pronunciation (item 7). However, while it is good to be optimistic about learning to speak English with an excellent accent, this could become a source of disappointment and frustration when learners encounter challenges and difficulties in achieving this goal, especially when the focus of a program is on building their academic language learning skills such as reading and writing. All things being equal, the findings also revealed that the students reported strong self-confidence and self-efficacy in language learning, an openness to English language and culture or a lack of ethnocentrism, as well as awareness of the benefits of bilingualism in the new millennium, which is generally associated with social, educational, and economic well-being and prestige. 5. Conclusions and implications The results of this study indicated that learning context could function as one of the strongest variables in language learning. The results suggested that not only do learners’ may develop misconceptions about different aspects of language learning that could cause belief conflicts between teachers and students (Brown, 2009; Peacock, 1998; Schulz, 2001), but these beliefs may or may not be also affected by new learning environments. Affected by their previous learning context, students developed some core beliefs about learning English, which remained unchanged encountering an ELF context. In other words, since “language learning does not happen in a culture-vacuum context and learner beliefs are born out of particular sociocultural contexts” (Peng, 2011, p. 315), learners used their already shaped beliefs as resources to deal with their new context of learning. The findings imply that it is imperative for teachers to be aware of their students’ beliefs in terms of their views towards the difficulty of language, the nature of language learning, the common communication and learning strategies they use, and their expectations as well as the degree and type of their motivation in language learning. In addition, while teachers may not be held accountable for their students’ development of unrealistic beliefs, their use of ineffective learning strategies, and having unrealistic goals, they should be committed to guide their students while facing the challenging tasks of learning a different language. This can be achieved only through discussing these beliefs with students to raise their awareness of the facilitative and detrimental impacts of having unrealistic or idealistic beliefs about language learning, which could affect their use of learning strategies, as well as their participation in and contribution to the learning activities. However, it seems that beliefs are complex, dynamic, contradictory, fluctuating, and related to contextual affordances (Barcelos & Kalaja, 2011), suggesting that while it is crucial to know about learners’ beliefs, seeing them as stable constructs, as the early approaches did (Navarro & Thornton, 2011), goes against the mission of education to promote positive changes and attitudes in learners. Indeed, beliefs are affected by and related to action; to what teachers do in their classroom; and to the curricular policies and priorities, which are themselves determined by other socio-political decisions. Further studies, therefore, need to investigate how different forces help these beliefs develop, change and interact with learning and teaching processes. The present study was carried out with a sample of overseas Iranian students studying in an ELF context. Due to a small sample size, compared with the population of overseas Iranian students, the findings cannot be generalized to other similar contexts. Therefore, further research is needed to replicate this study in other ELF contexts and to compare overseas learners’ beliefs with those of their counterparts in their home countries. Another limitation of this study was that only students who spent four months studying in this context were selected, and this might be an insufficient time for the change in learners’ beliefs (Kaypak & Ortaçtepe, 2014). Also, participants’ age, their educational background, gender, and field of study might affect the type of beliefs they hold. Thus, future studies need to take into account these meditational variables within a longer timescale. . References Amuzie, G., & Winke, P. (2009). Changes in language learning beliefs as a result of study abroad. System, 37, 366-379. Aragão, R. (2011). Beliefs and emotions in foreign language learning. System, 39(3), 302-313.

ALLS 5(1):22-30, 2014 29 Babel, M.E. (2009). Phonetic and social selectivity in speech accommodation. Unpublished dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. Baker, W. (2009). The cultures of English as a lingua franca. TESOL Quarterly, 43, 567-592. Barcelos, A.M.F. (2003). Researching beliefs about SLA: A critical review. In Kalaja P. & Barcelos A.M.F. (Eds.), Beliefs about SLA: New Research Approaches (pp. 7-33). Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht. Barcelos, A.M.F., & Kalaja, P. (2011). Introduction to Beliefs about SLA revisited. System, 39(3), 281-289. Borg, S. (2011). The impact of in-service teacher education on language teachers’ beliefs. System, 39(3), 370-380. Brown, A.V. (2009). Students’ and teachers’ perceptions of effective foreign language teaching: a comparison of ideals. The Modern Language Journal, 93(1), 46-60. De Costa, P.I. (2011). Using language Ideology and positioning to broaden the SLA learner beliefs landscape: the case of an ESL learner from china. System, 39(3), 347-358. Diab, R.L. (2006). University students’ beliefs about learning English and French in Lebanon, System, 34, 80-96. Edwards, J. (2010). Minority languages and group identity: Cases and categories. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Gao, X.A. (2010). Strategic Language Learning: The Roles of Agency and Context. Multilingual Matters, Bristol. Fiedler, S. (2011). English as a lingua franca – a native-culture-free code? Language of communication vs. language of identification. Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies, 5(3), 79-97. Hong, K. (2006). Beliefs about language learning and language learning strategy use in an EFL context: A comparison study of monolingual Korean and bilingual Korean-Chinese university students. Unpublished thesis. University of North Texas. Hosenfeld, C. (1978). Learning about learning: Discovering our students’ strategies. Foreign Language Annals, 9, 117-129. Horwitz, E.K. (1985). Surveying student beliefs about language learning and teaching in the foreign language methods course. Foreign Language Annals, 18(4), 333-340. Horwitz, E.K. (1986). Foreign language classroom anxiety. Modern Language Journal, 70, 125–132. Horwitz, E.K. (1987). Surveying student beliefs about language teaming. In Wenden A. & Rubin J. (Eds.), Learner strategies in language learning (119-132). London: Prentice Hall. Horwitz, E.K. (1988). The beliefs about language learning of beginning university foreign language students. Modern Language Journal, 72, 283-294. Horwitz, E.K. (1999). Cultural and situational influences on foreign language learners’ beliefs about language learning: a review of BALLI studies. System, 27, 557-576. Kalocsai, K. (2009). Erasmus exchange students. A behind-the-scenes view into an ELF community of practice. Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies, 3(1), 25-49. Kaypak, E., & Ortaçtepe, D. (2014). Language learner beliefs and study abroad: A study on English as a lingua franca (ELF). System, 42, 355-367. Kim-Yoon, H. (2000). Learner beliefs about language learning, motivation and their relationship: A study of EFL learners in Korea. Dissertation Abstracts International, 61 (08), 3041A. Kunt, N. (1997). Anxiety and beliefs about language learning: A study of Turkish-speaking university students learning English in north Cyprus. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX. Kuntz, P.S. (1996). Beliefs about language learning: The Horwitz model. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service, No. ED397649). Mather, P.-A. (2012). The social stratification of /r/ in New York City: Labov’s department store study revisited. Journal of English Linguistics, 40(4), 338-365. Mercer, S. (2011). Language learner self-concept: complexity, continuity and change. System, 39(3), 335-346. Murphey, T., Falout, J., Elwood, J., & Hood, M. (2009). Inviting student voice. Asian EFL Journal, 36, 1-25. Navarro, D., & Thornton, K. (2011). Investigating the relationship between belief and action in self-directed language learning. System, 39, 290-301. Negueruela-Azarola, E. (2011). Beliefs as conceptualizing activity: A dialectical approach for the second language classroom. System, 39(3), 359-369. Ning, Z. (2008). Metaphorical analysis of two Chinese students’ learner beliefs on English learning. US-China Foreign Language, 6(11), 41-51. Peacock, M. (1998). Exploring the gap between teachers’ and learners’ beliefs about “useful” activities for EFL. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 8, 233-250. Peng, J.-E. (2011). Changes in language learning beliefs during a transition to tertiary study: the mediation of classroom affordances. System, 39(3), 314-324.

ALLS 5(1):22-30, 2014 30 Pitzl, M. (2009). We should not wake up any dogs: Idiom and metaphor in ELF. In Mauranen A. & Ranta E. (eds.), English as a lingua franca: Studies and findings (298–322). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Tanaka, K., & Ellis, R. (2003). Study-abroad, language proficiency, and learner beliefs about language learning. JALT Journal, 25, 63–85. Truitt, S.N. (1995). Anxiety and beliefs about language learning: a study of Korean university students learning English. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX. Schulz, R. (2001). Cultural differences in student and teacher perceptions concerning the role of grammar instruction and corrective feedback: USA-Colombia. The Modern Language Journal, 85, 244-258. Seidlhofer, B. (2011). Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Wenden, A. (1986). What do second-language learners think about learning. ELT Journal, 40, 3-12. Wenden, A. (1987). How to be a successful language learner: Insights and prescriptions from L2 learners. In Wenden A. & Rubin J. (Eds.), Learner strategies in language learning (103-117). London: Prentice Hall. Wenden, A. (1991). Learner strategies for learner autonomy. London: Prentice Hall. Yang, J.-S., & Kim, T.-Y. (2011). Sociocultural analysis of second language learner beliefs: a qualitative case study of two study-abroad ESL learners. System, 39(3), 325-334. Yang, N. D. (1992). Second language learners’ beliefs about language learning and their use of learning strategies: A study of college students of English in Taiwan. Dissertation Abstracts International, 53(08), 2722A.



Comparative Analysis of the Concept of Shakespearean Tragedies

Muhammad Aslam Sipra (Corresponding author)

JCC, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia E-mail: [email protected]

Muhammad Haseeb Nasir

Department of English Studies, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan E-mail: [email protected]


Abstract In this article, the analysis of Shakespearean tragedies is presented. It reveals that Shakespeare’s plays are full of conflicting thoughts, and expression is so convincing that it is not possible to plan a system of philosophy out of them. Each character, from the king to the clown, from the most highly intellectual to the simpleton, judges life from his own point of view and says something that is so deep and appropriate at the playwright’s versatility of genius. So is the case with the conception of tragedy. Keywords: Tragedies, comparative analysis, Shakespeare, plays, downfall, action, pity and fear 1. Literature Review Prof. Thondrick (1908) says that Shakespeare uses elements of tragedy according to Aristotle’s definition of tragedy. It could be first examined what Aristotle says in this context.

In Aristotle’s Poetics (1961), tragedy is defined as the imitation of an action that is serious, has magnitude, complete in itself, in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in a narrative form with incidents arousing pity and fear wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.

Shakespeare in his earlier tragedies was, undoubtedly, influenced by Seneca but not in his major tragedies as Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear but it is said that there would be no Elizabethan tragedy if there were no Seneca because Shakespearean themes are revenge, blood and thunder, rant and bombast madness, supernaturalism and sensationalism like that of Senecan plays. A. C. Bradley (2007) says that a Shakespearean tragedy may be called “a story of exceptional calamity of hero and heroine”. Romeo and Juliet can’t be called a representative Shakespearean tragedy because Romeo and Juliet have no tragic flaw and only the tempest of circumstances wrecks their life. In Romeo and Juliet, the hero and the heroine are equally powerless. In Shakespeare’s major tragedies, the hero is the central figure and the heroine fades in the twilight. As in Macbeth, the heroine appears only for a while and then she is pushed into the background. Some of the history plays of Shakespeare can also be called tragedies like Richard II and Richard III. The action of tragedy should be the outcome of the conflict of will or will with circumstances. Shakespearean tragedy is always the outcome of conflict and conflict is always between new and his external world. The reason of this conflict is that man is not a paragon of perfection. Everyman has a tragic flaw as Cassius believes that everyman is responsible for his downfall although chances, accidents and fate are important to a great extent. The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings (Julius Caesar, I, ii, 140-141) Conflicts both external and internal are the crux of Shakespearean tragedies as Evans (1999) says, “no conflict no drama”. Shakespeare’s heroes possess errors which bring their doom. In Thompson and Taylor words (2006), Lear is violent, drastic effect, serious minded, Macbeth is too ambitious, Othello is jealous and Hamlet indulges in the procrastination, his mother’s incestuous marriage shuns him and he cries out: how weary, stale and flat and unprofitable, seem to me all the uses of this world fie on it ah! Fie! ‘tis an un-weeded garden” (Hamlet, I, ii, 133-34)

ALLS 5(1):31-34, 2014 32 Shakespearean tragic heroes as Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and Hamlet are always sick of life and in none of them can be found the glean of youthful vigour but his hero is always a person of high estate and noble stature and his sufferings are of his unusual kind. He is involved in agony and conflict owing to his own folly, weakness and blindness which has been called by critics as a tragic flaw. All the heroes of Shakespearean tragedy fulfill this demand of tragic hero. Romeo is an aristocratic, Macbeth is first a general and then a king, Othello is a general, Hamlet is a prince and King Lear is every inch a king. They are much above the average level of humanity but they are made of stuff we find within ourselves. Shakespeare has introduced chance, accident and fate in his tragedies. In King Lear, it is a chance that Edgar arrives at prison too late to save Cordelia’s death. In Hamlet, it is a chance that pirate ship attacks hamlet’s ship and he discovers the intrigue of his uncle. It may be an accident that Romeo never got the Friar’s message about the poison that Juliet did not awake from her long sleep. A minute sooner and Desdemona dropped her handkerchief at the most fatal of moments. Hamlet tries to kill the killer of his father but every time as Bradley (2007) writes, chance becomes a hindrance in his way as he says: Now might I do it pat, now he is praying, now I shall do it And so he goes to heaven. (Hamlet, III. iii, 77-78) Some critics are of the view that in Shakespearean tragedies, it seems that only the jealously of gods, fate, chance and accidents are not responsible for their downfall but human wickedness and the human will to evil is also the cause of his doom because it the corruption of man’s heart which turns Goneral and Regan into monsters. Similarly, villain Claudius as mentioned by French (2010) represents the spirit of the evil forces. Claudius villainous nature is revealed when Hamlet says: That one may smile and smile and be a villain! (Hamlet, I. v. 104-5) Shakespeare also introduces supernatural elements in his tragedies. The ghost and witches are an integral part of his tragedies. This element provides the confirmation and intensifies the movements in mind which are already present. Escolme (2012) writes about Hamlet’s inward movements how they become strong by the revelation of ghost: Do not forget: this visitation, Is but to…… But look, Amazement on thy Mother sits. (Hamlet, III. iv, 110-12) The use of subplot in Shakespearean tragedy also increases tragic effect and it is a common romantic expedient. Shakespeare oftenly uses subplot as an explanation of main theme as in hamlet play within play and in King Lear subplot universalizes the ingratitude and intensifies the tragic effect. Subplot reflects the duality of man’s nature through its two protagonists Albany and Cornwall get equal share of kingdom from Lear, and Edgar and Edmund are equally dear to Gloucester and Hamlet catches the conscience of the king through play within play. Aristotle (1961a) is of the view that the main object of tragedy is to arouse feelings of pity and fear. Shakespeare also creates this object. In King Lear, the misery and madness of Lear that he has no suitable shelter in spite of being a king enhances tragic effect and evokes our sense of pity. Similarly, when Gloucester’s eyes were torn out, he wins our hearts. The death scene of Cordelia and King’s remarks (Black, 2010) are very piteous when he says: And my poor fool is hanged No, no, no, life. (King Lear, V. iii. 311-12) The question of nobility must be considered in this connection. Shakespeare has chosen villain heroes but every one of them is depicted high nobility. Hamlet accuses himself of cowardice: O what a rough and peasant Slave am I.” (Hamlet, II. ii. 555) Lear’s suffering is greater than his fault which enlarges his nobility as he says: I a man more sinned against Than sinning.” (King Lear, III. ii. 59) Likewise, Cordelia too suffers for her pride. Shakespeare also provides comic relief in his tragedies by using rhythmical verses of fool, grave-diggers, drunken potter and musilian. The grave diggers play pranks without realizing the situation. The fool provides so much comic relief as a safety valve for the emotions of the audience. Shakespeare maintains a unity of tone and effect in his tragedies. He rejects Aristotle’s view that comic effect weakens the tragedy that is why it is said that Shakespeare’s plots are loose because he does not follow the time, place and action according to Aristotle’s definition. Dr. Johnson (1929) defends Shakespeare of his non-observance of the unities of time, place and action. He argues that dramatic business is based on make believe. He says that audiences are conscious all the time they are looking at the stage. They know fully that stage is a stage and players are only players. Moreover, in tragic scenes, there remains no pleasure if we are not conscious that is merely a fiction. So he finds Shakespeare justified in having neglected the unities of time, place and action.

ALLS 5(1):31-34, 2014 33 2. Discussion Now the important tragedies of Shakespeare are discussed. King Lear is one of the tragedies of character and the cause of his tragedy lies in Lear himself because he divides his kingdom between his two wicked daughters and ignores the sincere one. Lear’s vanity is punished and readers feel that he suffers more than his sin. His tragedy is deepened by the storm scene and one feels that King Lear is a cosmic tragedy. Hamlet has been rightly called a problem play. Masefield (2008) points out that nothing is simple and direct in Hamlet. Hamlet is a universal character. Hazlitt puts it this way that it is we who are Hamlet. Hamlet’s melancholy is his mother’s hasty marriage with his uncle, his father’s death, his suspicious nature and his love for Ophelia. That is why he is sick of his life. He says: O that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into dew. (Hamlet. I. ii.129-30) Another problem of Hamlet’s tragedy is his madness which is not real. As A.C. Bradley says if Hamlet were really mad at any time in the story he would cease a tragic character. Hamlet himself tells Horatio that he is going to put on an antic disposition. The most vexed question of Hamlet is his delay in taking revenge. His moral scruple nature intensifies his tragedy because he wants to know the fact of murder before doing something else, though he hates the marriage of his mother with his uncle Claudius. Hamlet is also a tragedy of character. Othello is a tragedy of intrigue. A.C. Bradley (2007) expresses that Othello would have destroyed Iago’s plot and ended his life but chance played a game and then both Othello and Desdemona were dead. In Macbeth’s character, the only tragic flaw is his inordinate ambition which brings his downfall. The tragic heroes of Shakespeare are all lovely figures. They have no friends. Even heroes’ wives and beloved have no favours of heroes. The hero dies and so does the heroine. Macbeth dies as does lady Macbeth. Romeo and Juliet die. Othello and Desdemona die. Hamlet and Ophelia die. Antony and Cleopatra die and Brutus and Portia die. The stage is littered with dead bodies, so one critic rightly suggests: So many persons die of a disease called the last act of Shakespearean drama. There is also a moral order in Shakespearean tragedy because the villain are always punished as Iago dies, Edmund, Goneril and Regan perish. Claudius can not escape death. It is said that in Shakespearean tragedies, there is no poetic justice because the good are not rewarded. As Johnson says that he could never reconcile himself to the death of Cordelia. He says he was so shocked by Cordelia’s death that he knows not whether he can endure if he reads again the last scenes of the play. Some critics are of the view that Cordelia was not able to live in this corrupt society, so the death of Cordelia is justified. Because the innocent people in their life often suffer greater sufferings while Cordelia’s death is also Lear’s punishment. Towards the end of the play, Lear triumphs over himself and the moral universe is triumphant over itself. In the beginning of Shakespearean tragedy, there may be a triumph of evil but the ultimate triumph of good is a fact in Shakespearean tragedies. We learn a lesson through the sufferings, miseries and calamities of Lear, Gloucester and Desdemona. In King Lear, Lear’s sufferings purify his mind and he achieves self-discovery. Similarly Gloucester leaves a message out of his sufferings. Cordelia’s death also leaves a lesson behind and one feels that earthly happiness miseries are nothing but beside such love and devotion. Therefore, a Shakespearean tragedy is never pessimistic. His tragedies prepare us for the immediate reaction. And we find ourselves more powerful to fight against our destiny, sufferings, miseries and hardships because Shakespeare’s heroes share our common traits and we feel akin to them. Shakespeare’s tragic heroes also have noble feelings and passions and also the embodiment of goodness and virtue. In fact, Shakespearean tragedies are the tragedies of error. Shakespeare maintains a balance between everything, destiny and free will, between tragic effect and comic effect. Shakespeare uses simple and beautiful language in his tragedies. He uses similes and metaphors in a grand style and for suggesting his serious purposes. To conclude, we can wind up our whole discussion with the view of Mr. Lucas that the motto of tragedy lies in Hamlet’s words: What a piece of work is a man! (Hamlet. II. ii. 295) In fact, his uncle’s unnatural act of murdering his father makes him a misanthrope that is why human being, despite being admirable creature, delights him not. Precisely, it is said that Hamlet is universal in appeal owing to its tragic appeal like all tragedies of Shakespeare.

ALLS 5(1):31-34, 2014 34 References Black, J. L. (2010). The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, 2nd edition: V.2: The Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth Century. Broadview Press: Canada Bradley, A. C. (2007). Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, King Lear, Othello & Macbeth, the Eco Library. Teddington: Middlesex Butcher, S. H. (2008). Poetics. Cosimo, Inc: NY Escolme, B. (2012). Talking to the Audience: Shakespeare, Performance and Self. Routledge, Abingdon: Oxon. Evans, T. F. (1999). George Bernard Shaw: The critical heritage,.The Routledge: London. French, A. L. (2010). Shakespeare and the critics. Cambridge University Press: NY. Ingram A. (1998). Patterns of madness in 18th century, Liverpool University Press: Liverpool Johnson, S. (1929). Johnson on Shakespeare. Oxford University Press: London. Jones, J. (2000). Shakespeare at work. Oxford University Press. Mansfield, J. (2008). William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27264/27264-h/27264-h.htm#Page_157. Thompson, A. & Taylor, N. (2006). Hamlet. Arden Shakespeare: London. Thorndike, A. H. (1908). Tragedy. The Riverside Press: Cambridge.



Methodological Flaws in Corpus-Based Studies on Malaysian ESL Textbooks

Abdolvahed Zarifi (Corresponding author)

Department of Language and Humanities Education, Faculty of Educational Studies Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM SERDANG, Selangor, Malaysia


Jayakaran Mukundan Department of Language and Humanities Education, Faculty of Educational Studies

Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM SERDANG, Selangor, Malaysia E-mail: [email protected]

Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi

Department of Language and Humanities Education, Faculty of Educational Studies Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM SERDANG, Selangor, Malaysia



Abstract With the increasing interest among the pedagogy researchers in the use of corpus linguistics methodologies to study textbooks, there has emerged a similar enthusiasm among the materials developers to draw on empirical findings in the development of the state-of-the-art curricula and syllabi. In order for these research findings to have their impact felt in language pedagogy, the researchers should, however, follow the well-established principles of the methodology. In an attempt to investigate the extent to which the researchers abide by these standards, the current paper reviews a number of corpus-based studies carried out on the ELT textbooks in Malaysia. It was specifically intended to shed light on the possible methodological flaws committed by the researchers. The study, it is the hope of the researchers, could provide some guidelines for the researchers to carry out further corpus-based studies on EFL/ESL instructional materials as well.

Keywords: Corpus Linguistics, ESL Textbooks, Malaysia, Methodology

1. Introduction

The development of corpus-based materials, like dictionaries, serves as evidence of the relevance of corpus linguistics to language description and language instruction as well. In recognition of this notion, different researchers have managed to investigate the ELT materials within the framework of corpus linguistics and compare textbook materials with some reference corpora. It might perhaps come as a great shock that a noticeable body of such corpus-based research has indicated the inadequacy of ELT materials in describing evidence from real language use. For instance, corpus evidence enabled Kettermann (1995) to argue that the prescription of the backshift rule for tenses in reported speech constructions in pedagogical grammars fails to comply with actual language use. Likewise, Tognini-Bonelli (2001) laments the remarkable degree of lack of agreement between descriptions of the indefinite pronoun ‘any’ in pedagogical grammars and the way it is used in natural corpora, holding that about 50% of the occurrences of the item in a corpus cannot be explained by the descriptions given in pedagogical grammars.

2. Contributions of Corpus Linguistics to ESL Teaching

The impact of corpus linguistics on language description has been so profound that it is sometimes compared to the effect “of the telescope on astronomy” (Ranali, 2003, p. 2). In particular, it threw doubt on the conventional demarcation between vocabulary and grammar, the convention upon which much of the language teaching methodology and practice was built. Contention has even been made that it has revolutionized the field of lexicography. The impact of corpus linguistics on language teaching is, however, a different story with “changes arising from CL appear to be creeping into ELT slowly over time” (Ranali, 2003, p. 3). Aston (2001) looks at the contributions of corpus linguistics to the process of L2 teaching and learning with respect to three major areas, namely Language description, Corpus linguistics methods in L2 classes and Learner corpora.

The first important contribution of corpus linguistics to language teaching is the description of various language features. These descriptions are especially important for language teaching because ESL textbooks have commonly

ALLS 5(1):35-39, 2014 36 been shown to include incomplete or misleading explanations (Gabrielatos, 2003; Kettermann, 1995; Koprowski, 2005; Tognini-Bonelli, 2001).

Despite the illuminating empirical findings offered by employing the corpus linguistics principles, it is helpful to point out that the findings are sometimes questionable either because of a lack of attention to computational rules advocated by the field or inattention to the conceptual particulars of the discipline. For instance, it is often the case that the percentage may not convey meaningfully the frequency of use of a linguistic feature for the lack of balance between the sizes of the corpora. Likewise, failure to make a distinction between such concepts as token, type and family might lead the researcher to conclusions that are otherwise unjustified. In a similar way, interpreting the findings of the study within the purely corpus linguistics framework tend to result in remarks unwarranted in terms of the pedagogical issues. More specifically, while corpus linguistics has to do with the frequency of use of the language elements, pedagogy appeals to the usefulness, learnability and teachability of the language units whatsoever.

3. Development of ESL Corpora in Malaysia

A small number of ESL corpora have recently been developed or are being created in Malaysia. To begin with, the University of Putra Malaysia developed the EMAS corpus in 2002. The corpus includes half a million running words containing written and spoken language collected from students Form one and Form four of selected primary and secondary schools in three Malaysian states. Likewise, Mukundan and Anealka (2007) developed the forensic corpus of secondary school English language textbooks used between 1990 and 2002, containing a total of 280,000 running words. The same researchers also developed a corpus of the Malaysian ESL textbooks of current use with the secondary level students. Furthermore, Menon (2009) refers to three other corpora which are under construction, namely, the MACLE corpus based on students’ essays, the COMEL corpus, a spoken corpus project, and the CALES corpus covering the argumentative essays being written by university students taking English proficiency courses at a number of Malaysian universities. Finally, Rezvani Kalajahi and Mukundan (2013) compiled a corpus of the argumentative essay writing composed by the Malaysian high school and college level students. This corpus consists of a total number of 500,000 running words.

With more and more attempts directed towards compiling and developing different corpora in Malaysia, more and more researchers have managed to study and explore different language forms in these compilations. Of particular interest in the present paper is a critical review of the corpus-based studies carried out on the corpus of English textbooks prescribed for use by Malaysian ESL students at the secondary level.

4. Corpus Studies on Malaysian ESL Textbooks

Different corpus studies with different foci have been carried out on the Malaysian ESL textbooks. In order to examine the adequacy of vocabulary load and distribution in two Malaysian ESL textbooks developed by two different writers for the same school level, Mukundan (2007) investigated the materials to document the degree of agreement between the two books in rendering the content of the syllabus. Having converted the textbooks and the syllabus word list into the Tagged Image File, he saved the files in the computer to be processed into computer text files. Then, he used the KeyWords, the WordList and the Concord tools of the WordSmith program 3.0 to analyze the files. Data analysis enabled the researcher to report a significant degree of disparity between the two books in covering the vocabulary suggested by the syllabus. While textbook One appeared to be an appropriate candidate, the other one failed to be representative of the syllabus in terms of coverage, distribution of words, density (type/token) and consistency(token/type) ratios, suggesting some degree of mismatch between the textbook and the syllabus requirements .

While the researcher has provided a list of words repeated in each unit of the books, no mention has been made as to the frequency counts of the items, however. Neither has any mention been made of the part of speech of the vocabulary items in the textbooks and those contributing to the intensity and consistency ratios. This is an important issue to consider as it is possible for the same orthographic form to serve different functions in the language. For instance, the word ‘present’ can function as a verb, a noun and an adjective based on the context in which it occurs.

In another study, Mukundan and Menon (2007) analyzed the language used in Science, Math and English language textbooks prescribed for Form One students in the southern zone of the nation. In order to identify the type of language Malaysian ESL students require in the process of learning Science and Math at schools, they looked for the most common word class among the key words in the corpora and the difference between the Science and Math textbooks. Results showed that nouns received a greater emphasis than verbs and adjectives in the three textbooks. Promising for the students, however, was that the nouns were mostly semi-technical and nontechnical words which were held to be easy and appropriate for the students’ level. There seemed to be an equal number of lexicalized and delexicalized verbs in the Science and Math textbooks, with lexicalized items in need of special attention due to the special meanings they carried in these texts. Adjectives appeared to be a different story, however. The type of adjectives in Science, mostly being derived forms, was reported to be more complex than adjective type used in the Math text.

Despite the revealing findings of the study, care should be exercised in the application of the results. To begin with, the unit of measurement of the vocabulary items in the study was ‘token’ rather than ‘lemma or type’. For instance, instead of ‘ANGLE’ and ‘SHADE’, ‘angled’ and ‘shaded’ were reported as the key word verbs in the Math text. However, if the unit of measurement had been ‘lemma’, that is if the other inflected forms like ‘angle’ and ‘angles’ or ‘shade’,

ALLS 5(1):35-39, 2014 37 ‘shades’ and ‘shading’ had been counted, the exclusion of some words from the list and the inclusion of some others would not have been unexpected. On the other hand, while the linking verb ‘is’ was reported as a key delexicalized verb in both Science and Math textbooks, it is not clear whether ‘is’ appeared as a single lexical verb or it was included in passive constructions. This is an important distinction to make as passive structures feature scientific texts, and the Science and Math textbooks are within the domain of scientific texts. As a result, differentiating ‘is’ as part of a passive structure from ‘is’ as a single lexical verb would give a clearer picture of the function of this verb in the textbooks.

In another small scale study on the same data, Mukundan and Menon (2008) investigated the use of nouns in the Science and English language textbooks. More specifically, they studied the distribution of nouns and noun collocations in the corpora. Results indicated that most of the nouns in the Science textbook consisted of semi-technical and nontechnical words which fitted in with the students’ level of schooling. The researchers, however, reported some syntactic structures of the science noun collocates with no parallel in the English language text, specifically the ‘Verb + Noun’ combination. While phrases like ‘living things’ and ‘exhaled air’ were raised as clues to the idiosyncrasy of the paradigm, the reader is not provided with any concordance line evidence to see them in the context. What is more, the phrase ‘living things’ fits in more with the pattern ‘Adj + Noun’ than with ‘Verb + Noun’, and so might the phrase ‘exhaled air’.

There are also some other corpus-based studies carried out on Malaysian ESL pedagogic corpus. For instance, Mukundan and Roslim (2009) studied the use of prepositions in the textbooks corpus against the reference corpus of the BNC. Likewise, Mukundan and Khojasteh (2011) compared the use of modals in this pedagogical corpus and the BNC. The researchers in both studies argued that the frequency of occurrence of modals and prepositions differed between the textbooks corpora as a whole and the reference corpus of the BNC. They also provided the reader with a set of figures indicating that the use of these two grammatical forms differed from textbook to textbook.

Although the two studies raised the difference between the two corpora as some sort of deficiency on the part of the textbooks, some reservation has been raised against using corpora as a basis upon which the instructional materials should be developed, however. For instance, Widdowson (2000) argued that corpus-based studies describe use, whereas pedagogy is concerned with usefulness. Additionally, the L2 learner community is not the same as that of the L1 native speaker.

As far as the difference between the textbooks are concerned, it should be pointed out that they were developed for learners with different levels of language proficiency and did not need necessarily to deal with the issues under study identically. Moreover, they were not of equal size. Thus, if the researchers, following the standard corpus linguistics analytical procedures, had normed the raw frequencies to occurrences per 100,000 words, for example, to allow for comparisons across textbook corpora of unequal size, it would be likely that the differences they found between the Forms might have been insignificant.

Moreover, although Mukundan and Roslim (2009) provided a good account of forms that almost exclusively function as prepositions of place like ‘behind, in front of, between, etc.’, they failed to discuss other elements like ‘in, on, down, over, back, away, etc.’, that might serve not only as prepositions of place, but also as prepositions of time, adverbs and verb particles. Such a distinction is necessary as the writers indicate “The nature and complexity of prepositions have consequently led to problems with prepositions for ESL teachers and learners” (p. 14). In addition, a major problem facing the ESL learners is distinguishing between the functions that these forms might serve as prepositions, adverbs and verb particles. The growing attempts in the related literature for developing various tests to differentiate these functions from one another (Bolinger, 1971; Fraser, 1976; Darwin & Gray, 1999; Zarifi, 2013) show the significance of the issue.

Finally, while the Mukundan and Khojasteh (2011) attributed the misuse/ungrammatical use of main verb forms by the learners to the lack of appropriate instruction of these forms by the teacher or insufficient repetition of these forms in the teaching materials, care should be taken that some other factors might be at work. First, some languages like Malay tend to show the notion of tense mainly through the inflection of the main verb or adverbs of time; therefore, the learners often prefer to indicate tense by inflecting the main verb, overlooking the well-established grammatical rule that simple form of the main verb follows the modal. Second, inaccurate use of these forms by the learners might be an indication of their developmental stages of language learning or inter-language phenomenon.

In a very recent corpus-based study on the Malaysian ESL Textbooks, Mukundan, Chiew Har and Nimehchisalem (2012) investigated the presentation and distribution patterns of the In/Definite Articles ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’ in the Form One through Form Five textbooks prescribed for use by the secondary school level students. The study provided a good account of the frequency and distribution of the articles used in the corpus. It also revealed the frequency and distribution of the colligation patterns of the articles. Despite the useful information the study offered on the treatment of the articles in the textbooks, the framework employed for the identification of article colligation structures is not comprehensive at all. First, there are some common colligational patterns associated with the Particles overlooked in the framework. For instance, the framework does not account for the structure ‘A + Quantitative expressions’ like ‘a few’ and ‘a little’ which is a well-known structure in the language and had a large number of frequency counts in the textbook corpus. Likewise, the colligational pattern ‘The + Comparative forms’ exemplified by such strings as ‘the more, the better, etc.’ is not included in the study though the Concordance query gave a number of instances of this structure in the corpus. Second, while ‘only’ is an adjective in sequences like ‘the only person’, the framework,

ALLS 5(1):35-39, 2014 38 surprisingly enough, assigns a separate structure to the occurrences of the sequence ‘The + Only’, distinguishing it from the general pattern ‘The + Adj’. Third, it seems not sensible why, if the string ‘A + Adj’ deserves a separate colligational pattern, the sequences ‘An + Adj’ and ‘The + Adj’ have not been given a separate pattern. Fourth, colligation of the definite article ‘the’ with descriptive adjectives like ‘poor, rich, good, etc.’ has not been accounted for by the framework. It should, however, be pointed out that the combination ‘the + Adj’ is a well-established pattern in the English language that is used to change the adjective into a plural noun when the speaker or writer refers to all the people that the adjective describes.

In addition to the inadequacy of the framework used, the study seems to be suffering in still another aspect as well. Despite the researchers’ conclusion that the indefinite article ‘an’ was under-presented in the textbooks and they, therefore, called for the provision of supplementary teaching materials that could make up for this deficiency, comparison of the data against the BNC revealed that it was the article ‘a’ that was overused rather than the article ‘an’ being underused in the textbooks. Normalization of the data showed that the indefinite article ‘an’ in the pedagogic corpus enjoyed almost the same frequency counts as in the BNC.

The last but not the least, in another recent corpus-based study on the Malaysian ESL textbooks, Philip, Mukundan and Nimehchisalem (2012) explored the treatment of conjunctions in this pedagogic corpus. Although the accuracy of the data from the BNC that were used as a basis for comparison is questionable, they provided some insightful information on what types of conjunctions were used in the materials and how the use of these elements in the corpus compared with their presentation in the BNC. For instance, they found that the distribution of coordinating conjunctions was higher as compared to subordinating and correlative conjunctions. Moreover, correlative conjunctions appeared to be the least occurring conjunctions among the three types. Furthermore, the different types of conjunctions appeared to enjoy a similar rank order in both the Textbook Corpus and the BNC. This study, unfortunately enough, failed to paint a clear picture of the semantic functions of these forms in the corpus. Conjunctions can be used to link different segments of a text such as nouns, phrases, clauses and sentences. Despite the various grammatical functions of these forms, the paper also remained silent on what constituent types these elements combined in the corpus and with what proportion.

5. Conclusion

The present study has reviewed a number of the corpus-based studies investigating the treatment of different language aspects as used in the Malaysian ESL textbooks prescribed for use by the secondary level students. Despite the remarkable insight they provided into the textbooks language, they were shown to be suffering from some conceptual, methodological and analytical problems. First, some of the studies appeared not to take the differences between such concepts as ‘token’, ‘type’, and ‘family’ into consideration in their interpretation of the findings, hence coming up with conclusions that could be challenged. For example, Mukundan and Menon (2007) adopted ‘token’ as their unit of measurement of the vocabulary items and reported ‘angled’ and ‘shaded’ as the key word verbs in the corpus. Adopting ‘type’ as the unit of measurement might have led to a different conclusion. Such a stance would give a clearer picture of the way vocabulary categories were treated in the corpus for ‘type’ involves items of the same nature and meaning but with different inflectional forms. A few comparative studies dealing with the congruence between the textbook language and the BNC ended with counting only the frequency occurrence of the different aspects of the language without normalizing the data. Such treatment often leads to inappropriate conclusions simply because of the probable imbalance between the corpora in terms of their sizes. For instance, normalization of the data rejected the disagreement between the textbooks and the BNC in terms of the indefinite article ‘an’ as was indicated by Mukundan, Chiew Har and Nimehchisalem (2012). Likewise, the framework they employed for the identification of article colligation structures was incomprehensive. For illustration, some of the patterns commonly associated with articles like ‘A + Quantitative expressions’, ‘The + Comparative forms’, etc. were not incorporated in the framework. Finally, some studies managed to take the BNC as their reference corpora and made pedagogical suggestions simply because of the divide between the textbooks and the general corpora in dealing with a given phenomenon. These suggestions would, therefore, be thrown into question as pedagogy and corpora do not stick to the same principles.

Refernences

Aston, G. w., Paul (Ed.). (2001). Learning with corpora. Houston: Athelstan.

Bolinger, D. (1971). The phrasal verb in English. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Darwin, C., M., & Gray, L. S. (1999). Going after the Phrasal Verb: An Alternative Approach to Classification. TESOL Quarterly, 33(1), 65-83.

Fraser, B. (1976). The verb-particle combination in English. New York: Academic Press.

Gabrielatos, C. (2003). Conditionals: ELT typology and corpus evidence. Paper presented at the 36th Annual Meeting of the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL), University of Leeds.

Kettermann, B. (1995). Concordancing in English language teaching. TELL and CALL, 4(95), 4-15.

Koprowski, M. (2005). Investigating the usefulness of lexical phrases in contemporary coursebooks. ELT Journal 59(4), 322-332.

ALLS 5(1):35-39, 2014 39 Menon, S. (2009). Corpus-based analysis of lexical patterns in Malaysian secondary school science and English for science and technology textbooks. Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang.

Mukundan, J. (2007). Irregularities in vocabulary load and distribution in same level textbooks written by different writers. Indonesian JELT, 3(1), 99-118.

Mukundan, J., & Anealka, A. H. (2007). A forensic study of vocabulary load and distribution in five Malaysian Secondary School Textbooks(Forms 1-5). Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 15(2), 59-74.

Mukundan, J., Chiew Har, A. L., & Nimehchisalem, V. (2012). Distribution of articles in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks. English Language and Literature Studies, 2(2), 62-70.

Mukundan, J., & Khojasteh, L. (2011). Modal auxiliary verbs in prescribed Malaysian English textbooks. English Language Teaching, 4(1), 79-89.

Mukundan, J., & Menon, S. (2007). Lexical similarities and differences in the mathematics, science and English language textbooks. Kata, 9(2), 91-111.

Mukundan, J., & Menon, S. (2008). Nouns and their extended units of meaning: A corpus analysis of nouns in the Science and English language textbooks. Journal Sastra Inggris, 8(2), 90-111.

Mukundan, J., & Roslim, N. (2009). Textbook representation of prepositions. English Language Teaching, 2(4), 13-24.

Philip, A., Mukundan, J., & Nimehchisalem, V. (2012). Conjunctions in Malaysian secondary school English language textbooks. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 1(1), 1-11.

Ranali, J. M. (2003). ELT coursebooks in the age of corpus linguistics: constraints and possibilities. Birmingham: University of Birmingham.

Rezvani Kalajahi, S.A. & Mukundan, J. (2013). Malaysian Corpus of Students’ Argumentative Writing (MCSAW). Australia, AIAC.PTY.LTD.

Tognini-Bonelli, E. (2001). Corpus linguistics at work. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co.

Widdowson, H. (2000). On the limitations of linguistics applied. Applied Linguistics, 21(1), 3-25.

Zarifi, A. (2013). Establishing and evaluating phrasal verb use in a Malaysian secondary school textbook corpus. Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang.



Scaffolding Singaporean Students to Write Vividly in the Chinese ‘Mother Tongue’, Mandarin

Tzemin Chung

School of Education, James Cook University PO Box 6811, Cairns, Queensland, Australia 4870


Neil Anderson (corresponding author) School of Education, James Cook University

PO Box 6811, Cairns, Queensland, Australia 4870 E-mail: [email protected]

Munkew Leong

Institute of Systems Science, National University of Singapore 21 Lower Kent Ridge Rd, Singapore 119077


Waiyin Choy Teacher, Ministry of Education, Singapore


Abstract

This paper details results from a three-year study investigating how to help students in Singapore write vivid compositions in Mandarin, the Chinese ‘mother tongue’. Mastery of the mother tongue by Singaporean students has become an important government priority in recent years. The strategies employed by this study included the use of information and communications technology (ICT) mediated scaffolds such as collaborative mind maps and online peer editing to help students learn micro-writing strategies. This paper outlines the process of using various scaffolds to support students to learn and apply the action chain micro-writing strategy. A class of 31 Primary 4 from a neighbourhood school participated in this study. Findings indicated that students were very enthusiastic about writing in the ICT-mediated environment. Contrary to the teacher’s initial belief, students could be scaffolded to write action chains quickly. Findings highlighted the potential of scaffolding students in learning small chunks of writing strategy in an ICT-mediated environment that enabled them to practice these strategies in their composition writing until they could master and apply them. These micro-writing strategies gradually built up to a complex set of skills, including expressive writing. Moreover, students enjoyed working in groups and editing their peers’ work online. This showed that peers could be engaged as scaffolders in the classroom to free up the teacher’ time, allowing the teacher more time to spend with students who were not performing well.

Keywords: collaborative learning, pedagogical issues, elementary education, teaching/learning strategies, applications in subject areas

1. Introduction

This paper begins with an overview of the Singaporean ‘mother tongue’ environment and how it influences the motivation to learn one’s ‘mother tongue’ in neighbourhood schools. The pilot phase of the study and its findings that reflect real world issues in the teaching of Chinese composition writing in these schools are described. It continues to introduce a writing program that aims at scaffolding students to write vivid compositions in Chinese. Both research issues in instructional scaffolding and real world classroom issues are considered in the design of the writing program. The paper further describes how the writing model was introduced in school and the data collected for analysis. Findings of implementing the writing program in a school are discussed. Future refinements of the writing program are also included.

1.1 The Singapore Context

Chinese is the second school language for ethnic Chinese and is referred to as a “Mother Tongue” language in the education system in Singapore. Mother tongue is defined as the language learned by children and passed from one generation to the next (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn) but this is not the case in Singapore where it may not be

ALLS 5(1):40-52, 2014 41 students’ home language (Dixon, 2005). Chinese speaking families of Primary One pupils have declined from 90% in 1980 (Ministry of Education, 2012), to 47.2% in 2005 (Pakir, 2008). In 2005, 93% of affluent families (defined as those who live in private condominiums and landed properties) surveyed spoke English or a mix of English and Chinese at home compared to 60% of families living in 3-room government housing board flats (Zhao, Liu, & Goh, 2007). Thus, children in Singapore today lack the environment to learn Chinese at home. Hence one of the most significant factors influencing literacy proficiency is absent, specifically, informal contact with native speakers, especially peers and family (Moyer, 2004).

The school environment in Singapore is also not conducive for learning Chinese as students spend only five to eight hours per week taking Chinese lessons. Typically, they would only write one composition per month that is done in a one and a half hour class. Hence the level of composition writing skills in Singapore is generally low. Sim (2005) reported that students had insufficient vocabulary and lacked basic sentence formation skills. They also lacked observation abilities and creative thinking skills. In addition, their vocabulary, grammatical and sentence structures were influenced by Chinese dialects, English, Malay, and Tamil (Lu, Zhang, Qian, 2002).

The Ministry of Education (MOE, 2012) in Singapore embraced information technology as one way to motivate students to write more. On a nation-wide scale, ICT (Information Communications Technology) tools such as e-dictionaries, Chinese character input systems, and online access to resources were added to the Chinese curriculum to raise the interest in learning Chinese. Furthermore, the MOE intends to enhance these efforts into a complete ICT-mediated writing program (Personal interview with a MOE curriculum planning and development officer, June 25, 2007). A summary of the interview includes the following:

1. It is worth putting in effort to develop a complete ICT-mediated writing program. We think a writing package is most needed in primary school;

2. ICT-mediated scaffolding should be a viable approach in helping students write better compositions. Teachers can go into the software and customize scaffolds for students;

3. Look into the development of writing software. We should look into companies to develop software and promote it in school;

4. Enable ICT-mediated peer-critique. Include game-based or reward-based software.

5. How can Chinese be more of a part of the pupils’ life? Using ICT may achieve that.

From the interview, we could discern clear areas of interest in the MOE intended efforts such as ICT-mediated scaffolding, peer-critique, games and creating an immersive Chinese environment in and out of school. As part of these efforts, the MOE Curriculum Planning and Development Division for Chinese language was exploring means to incorporate a technology platform into the Chinese language curriculum that can support a comprehensive writing strategy, building of scaffolds, peer-critique, educational games, rewards, and lifelong learning.

2. The Pilot Study

In August 2007, a pilot study was conducted in a typical neighbourhood school to explore the possibility of incorporating an ICT-mediated platform to help students write better Chinese compositions. Spilchuk (2009) describes Singaporean neighbourhood schools as “government schools which are in lower socio-economic neighbourhoods, or within government housing developments that are apartment style rather than those government schools which are in ‘elite’ upper or middle class areas of the city where residents live in condominiums, terrace houses and individual homes” (para. 1). Typically, these schools have large classes of up to 32 students, lack resources, and students in the Chinese classes were of mixed-ability.

In Chinese composition lessons, students are given four pictures to compose a story. They are stories that teach moral values. The minimum word count is 80. Teachers would typically start the composition lesson with an introduction to the composition topic and highlight ten possible words students could appropriately use in their paper. Students would then write the composition and would often ask the teacher how to transcribe words they needed for their compositions. This usually took up a lot of the class time. Students have to submit their compositions at the end of the lesson. As such, teachers did not have time to help the better students at the idea level or the weak students to construct and flow sentences.

As such, the school felt that they needed to enhance the existing writing instruction to include writing skill training and provide differentiated learning for different ability students. From the beginning of the pilot, it was understood that the training would be conducted within curriculum time so that it could be adopted as part of normal teaching rather than as a one-off special experiment or an after-school enrichment program. The pilot was run between August 2007 and November 2008.

2.1 The software platform

The software platform developed for this study was an e-portfolio system called FolioStar (see Figure 1). It was developed for its ease of use and flexibility in customizing scaffolding templates and assigning writing tasks to individual students (see Figure 2)

ALLS 5(1):40-52, 2014 42

Figure 1. Features of e-portfolio.

Figure 2. A scaffold with question prompts and helping words (text on the right).

2.2 Findings from the Pilot Study

The pilot study showed that students enjoyed learning in an ICT-mediated environment. The teacher indicated that many students previously disliked writing compositions but since using ICT to complete compositions, they would look forward to composition lessons. In addition, students were more motivated to do their work properly especially for ICT-mediated assignments. It also appeared that behavior in the class improved as students realized that when they behaved well, the teacher brought them to the computer-lab (Personal email communication, March 21, 2009). In the post-pilot student survey, eighty percent of the students indicated that they valued the ICT-mediated writing environment. They said that it increased their confidence in writing as the ICT platform provided them with writing prompts and additional

ALLS 5(1):40-52, 2014 43 helping words. More importantly, the positive effects as a result of using ICT were not novelty effects as the advantages sustained over the entire year. This may have been due to the engaging, immediate feedback nature of ICT since students, for example, were especially excited about a Chinese Language game that helped them improve their pinyin (i.e., phonetic skills) and built up basic language skills.

On the other hand, the pilot also clearly showed that students faced common challenges in writing Chinese:

1. Most students had limited vocabulary. For example, they may only have one word for a description and they used it for all situations, e.g., they use simple descriptions such as happy (高兴，开心) instead of more vivid or precise descriptions such as excited or high-spirited (兴奋，兴高采烈).

2. Students had problems with sentence construction. All except one student needed training to improve their sentence structure. The lone exception was a native speaker of Chinese originally from China. The teacher indicated that students could not write grammatically correct sentences. One common problem was that they would translate sentences literally from English such as 我要吃饭在这里 (I want to eat here) instead of the grammatically correct sentence 我要在这里吃饭 (I want here eat).

3. Students’ writing did not flow. Students had problems linking sentences to describe an event, although some were able to verbalize it. This may indicate cognitive overload in translating from verbal to written form. Furthermore, students did not know how to make use of linking words such as meanwhile and after. So they wrote in short, often disjointed, sentences. This caused the breakdown of flow in the composition.

4. The compositions were plain and had only basic short descriptions of the four pictures provided to guide students in their writing. The compositions lacked feelings, description of events, and character portrayal. It was clear that students did not have adequate vocabulary and they lacked composition-writing skills. For the weaker students, writing compositions simply meant completing the number of characters (80) required. It was observed that weaker students would frequently count the number of characters in their compositions.

From the pilot, it was clear that a writing program was needed to help students improve their basic writing skills such as transcribing, use of appropriate and interesting vocabulary, and how to write flowing sentences. At a higher level, they had to be taught composition writing skills to improve the vividness of their writing and opportunities for collaboration and peer/teacher feedback needed to be provided.

This paper focuses on the latter effort, where the study of one writing skill, that of the “action chain”, was conducted as part of normal curriculum based teaching in a primary 4 class in a neighbourhood school. The objective was to study whether an ICT-mediated writing program guided by the scaffolding research would improve writing quality and pedagogical engagement in a real world school environment.

3. The writing program

The writing program aims at providing effective differentiated learning by incorporating past research findings as well as addressing issues the school faced.

3.1 Incorporating prior research findings on scaffolding

In 1976, Wood, Bruner and Ross adopted the term “scaffolding” to describe a social interactional structure present in the environment that guides the student to achieve learning outcomes. These scaffolds often take the form of leading or probing questions that is especially conducive to helping children learn (Foley, 1994). Scaffolding is gradually removed as the learner increasingly gains mastery of the learning task.

Today, the concept of scaffolding adopted in the classroom is known as instructional scaffolding. Here, the metaphor is extended to address what, when, and how to scaffold and when to fade scaffolding (Lajoie, 2005). Davis and Miyake (2004) highlighted a range of issues such as: the teacher needs to perform just-in-time assessments for each learner in the classroom and to provide calibrated support based on the assessments. This is rarely achieved in practice in a real classroom situation though calibrated support can be partially offloaded from the teacher through adopting computer technologies. The limitation is that while computers work in real time, the systems do not accurately diagnose the abilities or performance standards of the learners to provide accurate supports or fading of scaffolds (Davis & Miyake, 2004).

Furthermore, in a classroom, the teacher need not be the only means of providing scaffolds to students. Other means include computers, peers, and online experts. It is important to consider how the scaffolding responsibilities are distributed among such means. From this perspective, Tabak (2004) highlighted three types of scaffolding, namely, differentiated scaffolds, redundant scaffolds, and synergistic scaffolds. Differentiated scaffolds are devised and each scaffold supports a different need. Redundant scaffolds basically provide multiple scaffolds to support the same need. This is to help students who have different learning needs with respect to a learning goal, e.g., if the student cannot benefit from one scaffold, he or she can rely on the support of another type of scaffold to achieve the learning goal. Synergistic scaffolds are different scaffolds that complement one another to help students achieve a goal. For example, software scaffolds alone may not be able to explain the rationale behind certain procedures or strategies. The teacher has to instruct students before they use the software scaffold and also, the teacher needs to provide dynamic reasoning

ALLS 5(1):40-52, 2014 44 while students are using the scaffold. Tabak further pointed out that it was important that the teacher integrated the scaffolds into a coherent system of learning.

Differentiated fading in the classroom is seldom addressed in research and very little empirical reports have been made on the issue (Pea, 2004). Pea pointed out that a fading process needed to be implemented to lead learners to independent performance. Such proof must be furnished for each learner, not only for selected groups or learners.

3.2 The school setting

We learned from the pilot findings that while students were very enthusiastic in learning to write Chinese compositions via ICT, the teachers were severely challenged by the limited lesson time allocated to teach Chinese compositions in big classes of mixed-ability students. This is especially difficult when many students were weak in their basic language skills and composition writing skills.

Due to the large class size (typically greater than 30 students) and the time constraints mentioned, the instruction and help that teachers can provide could only be one-size fit all. Due to severe time constraints, teachers did not have the time to individually evaluate student performance and provide customized just-in-time help. Thus, differentiated teacher support for students was lacking.

Moreover, the instruction and helping words provided were often specific to each composition. They were faded at the end of the lesson. As composition instruction focused on writing the given stories and words specific to the stories, they could not be repeated in the next composition lessons. High-ability students were able to recall and use these words in appropriate situations but lower ability students could not. This may be because the lower ability students had exceeded their zones of proximal development. Differentiated fading would allow higher ability students to learn beyond what was given and lower ability students to learn within their abilities.

The writing program addressed the issues the school faced by the following methods:

3.2.1 Introduced micro-writing skills

Scaffolding was the primary building block of the program. As such, we address the one-size fit all blanket help provided in class by creating small chunks of writing strategies (i.e., instructional scaffolds) that students could learn in a short period of time and which could be applied in a wide variety of contexts. They are also easy for teachers to scaffold students throughout the academic year. Thus, we designed and taught writing strategies such as the Big Four (“when”, “who”, “where”, and “what”) for creating good introductions, Feeling Chains which helped students add adverbs to descriptions, and Action Chains which taught students how to describe an event more vividly by breaking it down into a sequence of three closely related actions. These strategies could be reinforced in composition lessons throughout the year thus allowing students to internalize them at their own pace. In practical terms, these scaffolds need not be faded at the end of just a single lesson.

3.2.2 Adopted ICT-mediated scaffolds to guide Chinese composition writing

In response to Tabak’s (2004) call for integrating differentiated, redundant, and synergistic scaffolds to create a coherent learning system, three types of writing scaffolds were integrated into the writing programs. First, to address the needs of higher ability students, differentiated scaffolds were created by combining writing strategies. For example, after higher ability students learn the basic strategy for writing action chain, they could proceed to combine character portrayal with an action chain, e.g., the old man with grey hair, fading eyesight, walked wobbly with a cane (underline indicates character portrayal), stepped on the rock, lost his balance and fell heavily on the ground with a big “thud” (italic text indicates the action chain).

Besides the main scaffold, a series of redundant scaffolds such as electronic worksheets and a collaborative mindmap to brainstorm for action words were used to help lower ability students learn writing strategies.

In the main scaffold for action chain, students were grouped up to work on assigned actions online. There were three nodes for them to collaboratively come up with three closely related actions. Once a group member updated a node, it would show up on the group members’ computer screen (see Figure 3). Finally, students had to write a sentence each that includes the three closely related actions. In addition, the teacher provided two additional variations of action chain template on paper for students to fill in individually. When writing compositions, she also provided helping words that students could use to write action chains.

To scaffold synergistically, the teacher conducted direct teaching, did modeling, and adopted the ICT-mediated collaborative mind map. These learning activities complement one another to help students achieve the goal of writing vivid actions. In direct teaching, the teacher first introduced the goal of writing action chain. Then, she showed video clips of actions and asked students to help break them down into three closely related actions. She also showed examples of well-written action chains. Finally, she modeled how to fill out the three boxes in the template. After she has completed direct teaching and modeling, she let students work on the ICT-mediated scaffold online.

ALLS 5(1):40-52, 2014 45

Figure 3. A collaborative mind map scaffold to help students write action chains.

3.2.3 Engaged peers as scaffolders

With ICT, the teacher could provide more differentiated support to address the needs of students. The mind mapping application allowed teachers to create a simulated environment in which students could immerse themselves and collaborate in Chinese. This could offload at least the transcribing responsibilities from teachers, which normally would take up a large chunk of the composition lesson time, to students. The teacher then had more time to work with students who needed her more.

The writing program adopted ICT-mediated scaffolding as its building block. Its aim was to help students apply micro-writing strategies so that they could write vividly. These strategies are small for ease of learning and applying. In this paper, we will focus on the action chain micro-writing strategy. The main scaffold for writing action chain was the ICT-mediated collaborative mind map in which students collaboratively came up with three closely related action, one in each node, then they each write a sentence that consisted of the three related actions. The ICT platform provided the environment for collaborative brainstorming and writing composition with scaffolds. Students’ works were recorded for analysis and assessment.

3.3 Research Questions

This study attempted to answer these questions:

1. What is the best way to integrate ICT-mediated scaffolds effectively to guide Chinese composition writing?

2. How do ICT-mediated scaffolds increase differentiated teacher support in class?

3. How can fading be implemented effectively?

4. Methodology

A mixed qualitative and quantitative case study design was adopted for this study. This design allow us to experience and document the teaching of Chinese composition writing in a local primary school under real world conditions.

4.1 Data Collected

Various types of data were collected and analyzed. They were:

4.1.1 Students’ artifacts

There were two kinds of student artifacts – work done on paper and work done online in the e-portfolio. Artifacts available for analysis that were done on paper included the pre-test compositions of the whole class, scaffolding exercises and compositions written online.

4.1.2 Teacher’s observation notes

The teacher took detailed observation notes on the implementation of the various writing strategies and learning activities (e.g., ICT-mediated activities, writing in the e-portfolio). Areas the teacher took notes on included students’ performance, the difficulties she or students encountered in class, effectiveness of the ICT-mediated writing strategies, effectiveness of group work, and the role of the teacher in an ICT-mediated classroom. The teacher’s observation notes were written in a blog in her e-portfolio. It is password-protected.

ALLS 5(1):40-52, 2014 46 4.1.3 Personal communication with the teacher

This was conducted via email whenever we needed to clarify issues with her, e.g., how did some of the students perform in other subjects, her perception of the effectiveness of writing strategies, how did she conduct certain writing activities?

4.1.4 Students’ surveys

A total of 47 students took a survey at the end of the study. The survey was administered online in the computer lab at the end of the year. The survey was created using Survey Monkey. It assessed students’ perception on the effectiveness of the writing strategies. Responses were analyzed as a whole as well as grouped into high-, medium-, and low-ability in Chinese categories. There were 18 high-ability students, 15, medium-ability, and 20 low-ability students.

4.1.5 Students’ interviews

At the end of the study, ten students (two high-ability, six medium-ability, and two low-ability) were interviewed by the teacher. They were interviewed to find out more about their perception of the writing instruction intervention. The interviews were semi-structured. The teacher would ask students an open-ended question. If they could not answer, she would prompt them with options. They were asked in-depth questions (e.g., why were certain writing strategies useful or not useful for them, what specifically did they feel they needed to improve in).

As the mixed quantitative and qualitative approach was adopted to analyze the data collected, statistical analysis was conducted on composition scores. Students’ artifacts, teacher’s notes and students’ responses in surveys and interviews were analyzed qualitatively. The aim was to find out if different sources of evidence corroborate one another. If they did, there would be stronger support for the writing program.

4.2 Grouping students into high-, medium- and low- Chinese ability for data analysis

To attain greater granularity of results, the performance of different ability students was analyzed. Student clusters were categorized according to their exam scores in curriculum material in the Continual Assessments (CA) 1 and 2 which took place in March and September. These assessments included comprehension of text, learning of vocabulary, and sentence structure. These two exams did not have a composition component. As such, the grouping was based on the student’s general Chinese language ability independent of their writing skills. The mean CA scores, which ranged from 11 to 48, were used to categorize students into high, medium, and low ability. Natural boundaries were identified at clear gaps in the average scores. One gap occurred between 41.5 and 40 which was set as the boundary between high and medium ability students; another occurred between 35.25 and 30.5, which was set as the boundary between medium and low ability students.

5. Results and Discussion

5.1 Teacher as scaffolder

The teacher scaffolded the action chain micro-writing skill to help students write more vivid actions. She first showed students how she expanded an action into three closely related actions. Then she chose an action such as “ride a bike” for students to brainstorm for closely related actions. According to the teacher: “The brainstorming activity is conducted as a whole class where better ability pupils provide their observations of certain actions and teacher assists in recording the actions into words” (April 7, 2009). The teacher then drew three boxes and guided the students to fill in boxes with one closely related action each. Then, she asked each student to write a sentence with the three closely related actions the class had come up with. The final sentence writing activity was an important step to tell students it was not enough to break down an action into three actions. They had to write a sentence with the three closely related actions, which was the goal of the exercise.

5.2 ICT-mediated scaffold via collaborative mind maps

The teacher also scaffolded students to expand actions into related actions via the ICT-mediated collaborative mind map. When scaffolding students via the collaborative mind map, they were grouped up and each group was given a phrase to expand into related actions. Each group had their own mind map and every member in the group could edit it on their own computer screen and they could edit one another’s work. The teacher commented how she grouped students:

For this activity the pupils are grouped into small groups of 3 or 4. Each group works on one mind map. In their group, there is a mixture of weak and strong pupils. This is to enable the strong pupils to guide the weaker ones during discussion, allowing the weaker pupils to model and learn from them (Teacher’s note, April 18, 2009).

5.3 The teacher’s comment on the effectiveness of working collaboratively via the mind map.

The teacher found that students would gradually adapt to working with peers closely online. The software was able to:

1. Improve student engagement. The teacher noted that “pupils are excited about the activity. Though it's their first time using the mind mapping function, most of them are patient and are willing to try out the functions” (April 18, 2009). She further noted that:

ALLS 5(1):40-52, 2014 47 … they take longer time to complete the assignment, however, I can see that the pupils are more interested in ICT based than pen-paper based. Pen-paper though discussion is face-to-face, weaker pupils may not open their mouth to contribute. But by this new method of pulling individual nodes, the weak pupils are forced to contribute their own nodes. Even if they are just copying from the stronger team mates, at least that action is learnt and absorbed. (this is modeling) (April 25, 2009).

2. Improve student collaboration skills. After students had more practiced using the mind map software, they improved in collaborative work. They would collaborate verbally and then make changes online. This is reflected by the teacher’s comments after the second mind map activities:

We realised this time, there are verbal communication between stronger pupils. They are sharing ideas how they can improve on the sentence. Communication is verbal which is easier for them, instead of expressing what they want to say through typing in the comments column (April 25, 2009).

In addition, ICT enabled students to collaborate from different locations:

…using ICT allows children to work on the assignment anywhere. One kid was unwell and stayed at home. However, during the ICT lesson, he logged onto the website and was able to communicate/discuss with his group mates and complete the assignment with them (April 18, 2009).

3. Encouraged students to learn independently. The collaborative mind map empowered students to be independent in learning. The teacher noted: “I allow the better pupils to have the freedom of completing the activity independently, only to show me the outcome of the assignment before shutting down” (April 18, 2009). It also enabled the teacher to teach at a higher, or, conceptual level: “…I only help them through simple verbal prompts like you can think of how to expand this action etc.” (April 25, 2009). The teacher summarized her teaching experience via the collaborative mind map as follows:

We made use of the mindmap to let students accumulate descriptive vocabulary and also work on action chain. Because their peers' work are reflected real-time on their screens, the H[igh-ability] students are able to learn independently, by reading other peers' work then reflect and amend their own sentences. I am able to then spend more time on the W[eak] students, helping them on the action chain sentence making (July 2, 2011).

5.4 The teacher’s comments on the effectiveness of the action chain micro-writing skill.

The teacher perceived the action chain intervention to be the most difficult writing skill to scaffold. It was because students had to visualize the unfolding of an action, which was something they had never learnt to do before. Furthermore, they had to describe the related actions with words that they most likely did not have in their vocabulary. Furthermore, there was not enough time dedicated in the teaching of the action chain writing strategy: “Due to time constraint, I was not able to get pupils to act out the actions. I only got the pupils to think and give me suggestions of small actions” (April 7, 2009).

Contrary to her belief, students performed surprisingly well in applying the action chains writing skill. The teacher was also amazed by her students after she introduced action chains to them for the first time: “Some of the pupils have already included simple action chains in their composition” and “the weaker pupils actually [were] able to tell you the small actions but their usage of words limited, hence teacher needs to provide more prompts on this” (April 7, 2009). The teacher also noted that “all the pupils are on task and are able to come up with 3 tiny actions to support the big action. They are also able to link the tiny actions into a sentence, forming an action chain” (April 18, 2009).

5.5 Students’ comments on the effectiveness of the action chain micro-writing skill

Those high- and medium-ability students who could write action chains showed confidence in their abilities: “I am able to split the action into smaller actions”; “[They] make composition more interesting plus get more marks”; “get to know many action vocabulary (more exposure to them)”; “Teachers' marks also reflect I do well in these”; “I can imagine the actions; and I have the vocabulary to write action chains”. On the other hand, many students commented: “very hard, I was not able to write them. It is too difficult. Too difficult and always get it wrong”.

What is it then that caused everyone to perceive action chain as a difficult writing skill to master? Some students reported:

(a) They were not able to visualize the unfolding of an action and as such, they were not able to write the three closely related actions. A student commented: “I can only think of two actions”. Other comments included:

I can’t really see it in my mind’s eye so I don’t have anything to write about. I know where to add action chain but am unable to write as specifically and I am not able to break down [an action] to tiny actions.

(b) Students did not have the vocabulary to write detailed actions, as a high-ability student commented, “I need more vocabulary”;

(c) They did not know where to add action chains, that is, they could not identify actions to write in the pictures: “I don’t know where in the pictures to add actions”.

ALLS 5(1):40-52, 2014 48 Furthermore, students commented that there was not enough time dedicated to the teaching and learning of action chain activities. A high-ability student commented: “… too little time spent, a little rush as we cannot discuss/elaborate much in class” and “… too few actions are discussed”. There was also “too short a time to absorb learning”.

Students found it difficult to write action chains. Did they actually write them in their compositions? Let us take a look at the compositions in the e-portfolio to find out how they performed in writing action chains.

5.6 Action chain performance in the compositions written in the e-portfolios.

Students did well in applying the action chain writing skill to describe actions. In Composition 5, even the low-ability students could break down an action into at least four closely related tiny actions. For example, JN, a low-ability student, wrote (italic text indicates closely related actions): “This day, When Grandpa Wang was sweeping the floor, he accidentally knocked on the metal cabinet. The very precious vase was toppled. ‘Clang’ that vase fell on the floor”. Another low-ability student TT described the incident in this manner: This day, Grandpa Wang reached the office. He went to sweep floor at once. When he swept till the boss’ office, grandpa Wang swept till he reached the boss’ cabinet. He stepped back, the vase dropped, and broke. BL, another low-ability student, wrote a six-component action chain: This day, old grandpa as usual, was sweeping at the boss’ office. Accidentally stepped back, his buttock knocked into the metal cabinet, the boss’ favorite vase was knocked over and broken. The glass shattered on the floor.

High- and medium-ability students could write better quality action chains. For example, JC could write action chains with logical flow and imagination (italic text indicates closely related actions):

This day, Uncle Lin was sweeping the floor in a corner of the office. He did not notice that behind him was a cabinet. On top of the cabinet was a vase, that vase was the boss’ beloved vase. Uncle Lin accidentally knocked over the vase. The vase dropped and shattered with a “clang”.

A medium-ability student AQ also wrote with better basic language skills than the low-ability students (underlining added to indicate closely related actions):

That day, Uncle Wang, as usual, went to the office at 7 o’clock to clean up. Uncle Want went to the boss’ office to sweep the floor. When he swept, backed up a step, the back knocked into the cabinet accidentally, the vase on top of the cabinet dropped, the vase shattered with a “clang”.

High-ability students were able to apply the action chain writing skill to describe actions in detail and with imagination while medium-ability students’ descriptions were effective and in ‘good’ Chinese and with some imagination. Although low-ability students were able to breakdown an action into a few closely related actions and described them in ‘simple’ Chinese, they missed including relevant events. As a result their description did not make sense in some places.

Since action chain was perceived to be difficult to write, why was it that students were able to write good action chains in Composition 5? It could be because the teacher anticipated the challenges students faced and helped them to resolve the issues by first, letting students practiced writing action chain before the actual composition. The teacher explained:

We made use of Silverlight mind mapping to do brainstorm for tiny actions for some big actions like fighting, falling etc. With the tiny actions, they will put them together and form sentences (May 2, 2011).

As students worked on writing action chains via collaborative mind maps just before this composition, the writing skill was therefore fresh in their mind and they were able to render it during the composition.

The teacher included appropriate vocabulary for writing the action chain as helping words. They were words like sweeping the floor, metal cabinet, favorite vase, backing up, and accidentally. By using these words to form sentences, students could write an action chain.

Hints were given and the teacher inserted an instructional prompt at the appropriate textbox to tell students where to write the action chain. In addition, the action was indicated in the picture. Students knew exactly where to insert the action chain.

Did students internalize the writing of action chain? Let us take a look at whether students wrote action chains in Composition 9, which was the last composition written for that year. In the pictures and the e-portfolio, there were no hints given to students as to where to write an action chain. If students could write action chains in this composition, then it would provide support for the claim that they had internalized the writing of action chains.

In this composition, there were no actions in the pictures. However, students could still include a sequence of events (event chain) in their compositions. The teacher would regard this as a natural extension of writing action chains as event chains could not be clearly separated from action chains in the first place. In fact, in action chain writing exercises, the teacher did not differentiate between the two. For example, students could write an action chain or an event chain for the phrase picking up a wallet from the floor. The action chain version could be: She spotted the wallet on the floor. She looked left and right several times, walked towards it, bent down and picked up the wallet quickly. An event chain could be: She spotted the wallet. She went over to pick it up from the floor. Then she made her way to the police station to hand it over to the police. The teacher would award both with higher marks for vividness.

Did students write event chains in the final composition? Low-ability student TT described what Ming, the character in the story, did when he got home (italic text indicates components in the event chain): “This day, after school, Ming

ALLS 5(1):40-52, 2014 49 reached home, cast his schoolbag aside, then he switched on the TV to watch cartoon”. Another low-ability students wrote JN a combination of event chain and action chain: “This day, after school, Ming, once reached home, went to shower and eat lunch immediately. After lunch, he dashed to watch TV program. He switched on the TV, unable to take his eyes off the TV program”.

AQ, a medium-ability student, wrote this event chain (underlining indicates components of the event chain): “This day, after school Ming, upon reaching home, cast his school bag aside, turned on the TV, with eyes wide open, began to watch TV programs”.

TXH, a high-ability student, wrote a long event chain: “This day, after school, Ming got back from school. Once he reached home, he immediate put his school bag down, switched on the TV then sat on the sofa to watch TV and be enthralled by the program”.

Composition 9 has provided us with evidence that students had acquired skills of writing closely related actions or events. We can see sequences of events in compositions of different ability students. Although it was originally thought that this was the most difficult micro-writing skill for students to learn, it turned out that they could acquire it in a short time.

Students were able to apply the action chain micro-writing skill. However, medium- and low-ability students would need scaffolding to help them better describe closely related actions. They lacked the vocabulary or sentence structure to write effectively.

Although the action chain micro-writing skill can be learned quickly, the teacher may have to provide regular opportunities for students to write action chains. This will reinforce them to automatically identify places where they could add an action chain, visualize how an action unfolds, and use appropriate vocabulary. The weaker students must learn more actions words. This can be acquired through Chinese language games. The following statistical analysis of students’ performance in writing action chains showed that students of all ability could write action chains, contrary to the teacher’s belief.

5.7 Statistical analysis for action chains

To find out if students wrote more action chains over time, the number of action chains and event chains in the pre-test, Compositions 5 and 9 were compared. In Composition 5, there was a distinct action depicted in the one of the pictures. The action could be broken down to a series of tiny related actions. The teacher also instructed students where to include an action chain. In Composition 9, there was no such depiction in the pictures and the teacher also did not instruct students to write an action chain. As the teacher also taught her students to expand an event into closely related events, the concept of action chain could be expanded to include writing a sequence of events.

A repeated measure ANOVA was conducted to compare the numbers of action/event chains written in the three compositions. Sphericity was tested using the Mauchly’s Test, which finds out if the hypothesized and the observed variance patterns were equivalent. The test was significant, W = .65, χ2 (2) = 8.96, p = .01, which indicated that the assumption of sphericity had been violated. Therefore, degrees of freedom would have to be corrected. In this case, the epsilon values from Mauchly's test values are .74 and .78, both very close to .75. As such, the Huynh-Feldt estimate of sphericity corrected value (ε = .78) is used.

It follows that the number of action/event chains for the three compositions differed significantly, F(1.57, 34.47) = 39.74, p = .001. ηp

2 = .64 (see Table 1). Post hoc comparisons show that students wrote significantly more action chains in Compositions 5 and 9, compared to the pre-test. The results supported the findings from the analysis of the compositions that students were able to write action chains.

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics for the Number of Action Chains in Three Compositions and P Values for Pairwise Comparisons

Composition M SE Pre-test Composition 5

Pre-test .00 .00

Composition 5 1.00 .09 .001*

Composition 9 1.13 .16 .001* .42

Note. N = 23. α = .05, * = significant difference

5.7.1 Differences in number of action chains written by high-, medium-, and low-ability students.

Did all students benefit from the action chain writing strategy and write more action chains? We conducted a one-way between groups ANOVA to find out. The total number of action chains written by each student was first computed. Test of homogeneity of variance was not violated (p = .06).

Results showed that there was no significant differences in the number of action chains written by different ability students, F(2, 22) = 1.19, p = .33, ηp

2 = .11 (see Table 2). Results suggested that students of all ability levels benefitted from the action chain scaffolding.

ALLS 5(1):40-52, 2014 50 Table 2. Descriptive Statistics for the Total Number of Actions Chains Written by Different Ability Students and P Values for Pairwise Comparisons

Composition M SE High Medium

High 2.42 .36

Medium 1.75 .16 .30

Low 2.00 .00 .78 .92


It is therefore safe to conclude that the action chain scaffolding in the writing program was successful in helping all levels of students describe actions vividly. All students wrote more action chains after the scaffolding and some students broke down actions into more than 3 closely related actions. Statistical analysis was required to find out if higher-ability students break down an action into more than three closely related actions. The total number of closely related actions was first computed for each student. Then the data were analyzed using the one-way between groups ANOVA procedure. The assumption of homogeneity of variance was not violated (p = .07).

Results suggested there was no difference in the number of closely related actions written over time by different ability students were F(2, 22) = 2.16, p = .14, ηp

2 = .18 (see Table 3).

Table 3. Descriptive Statistics for the Total Number of Closely Related Actions Written by Different Ability Students and P Values for Pairwise Comparisons

Composition M SE High Medium

High 9.83 4.80

Medium 6.25 2.12 .12

Low 8.00 1.00 .74 .78


Analyses indicated that the action chain micro-writing skill was, contrary to our belief, not a difficult concept for students to learn and apply. From the teacher’s observation, it seems that low-ability students did not have much of a choice but to write their action chains in awkward Chinese. Medium-ability students were precisely the group that would spend time trying to write better Chinese. As such, their mental effort and attention were directed at improving their basic language (e.g., write better sentences, use more vocabulary) rather than writing actions chains. In future interventions, it may be beneficial for the teacher to introduce video clips in the scaffold so that students can select appropriate frames to describe. This will help medium-ability students better focus on describing actions. It will also help high-ability students to write more enriched action chains. However, for the weaker students, improving in their basic writing skills is still the key to better writing performance.

5.8 What students Enjoyed Most in the Action Chain Learning Process?

When the teacher asked what students enjoyed most in learning to write composition, all high- and medium-ability students (altogether eight students interviewed) selected group work as the activity they like most. They said they “enjoyed working in groups”, “like my friend to edit my work”, and “interesting to learn with friends”. They also requested to “have more group work on sharing among friends” as it would enable them to “learn some good ideas/writing techniques”, “discuss on what to write”, “discuss on new vocabulary”, “play [act] out the pictures for understanding of them”. In future interventions, ICT-mediated group activities should again be integrated to scaffold students. Low-ability students did not find group work interesting probably because they did not contribute much to the group activities. It seemed that students selected the activity they could do well in as the activity they liked best.

5.9 Suggestions and future plan for improving the writing program

Besides setting aside more time to teach and for students to practice writing action chains, we should also let them explore how actions unfold. This will improve their visualization skills. For example, a high-ability student made the suggestion of using video to help students visualize unfolding of actions:

Video will be able to help me, and [there was] little time spent/taught this in school so when reading at home I will go and find out more on action chain which make me more interested in this part; mom will guide me/teach me to write in details (through thinking).

Video is an ideal tool to show how actions unfold. Using video clips to teach the writing of action chains, the teacher can pause at the appropriate frames and ask students to write descriptions about them.

ALLS 5(1):40-52, 2014 51 In addition, the teacher provided the suggestion to introduce good action chains writing samples from previous classes so that students know what good action chains are like. The teacher commented: “The example from the pupils' composition became an introduction to the lesson. I explained to the pupils what action chain is and that for vivid actions, they should observe more and break the actions down into smaller actions” (April 7, 2009).

In the following paragraphs, we will discuss work in the progress to integrate video functionalities and create a database for action chain samples into the software platform. It is hoped that with these functionalities, the writing program can further help students acquire and internalize the action chain micro-writing skills.

To help students visualize and describe closely-related actions, an iPad application has been developed for students to capture an action clip. They can then view each frame in the video clip and select the frames they want to add descriptions. The video clip, together with the descriptions, will be uploaded to a dedicated work-area in the software platform for teachers and peers to comment on. The teacher can then link the video clip to individual students’ e-portfolio for them to make further refinements.

Students’ video action chain clips annotations and their compositions are valuable resources to scaffold subsequent batches of students. They can help students grasp what the teacher means by writing good action chains. In the short term, we are working towards including functionalities to help teachers identify good work and make them available for demonstration. In the long term, the system will mine artefacts and automatically retrieve appropriate resources to scaffold students toward writing better action chains (Chung, Leong & Loo, 2006). Such scaffolds are known as adaptive scaffolding (Pea, 2004).

6. Conclusion

The teacher integrated a suite of ICT-mediated scaffolds to address the different needs of students. She incorporated differentiated scaffolds to ensure students of various abilities could work within their own ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development). Weaker students worked on simpler task while higher ability students had more complicated tasks to challenge them. She also created redundant scaffolds to provide additional practice for very weak students. Her scaffolds complemented one another to create a coherent learning system. Furthermore, she scaffolded synergistically by conducting direct-teaching, demonstrating good and bad examples, modeling, and allowing students to work on ICT-mediated activities. Analysis of students’ compositions, the teacher’s and students’ feedback indicated the scaffolding activities improved students’ performance in writing vivid actions. All students were able to construct action chains. And different ability students did not differ in the number of closely-related actions they wrote. Students also wrote significant more action chains in their compositions compared to the pre-test.

With ICT, the teacher could conduct peer-editing activities with relative ease. Working collaboratively online, students also received just-in-time feedback from peers, which motivated them to persist with the task at hand. The teacher was freed from providing routine help for the average students, which usually took up the bulk of her instruction time in the traditional setting. She then had more time to help the high-ability or very weak students.

With the introduction of small chunks of writing strategies, students could learn them quickly and apply them to the compositions they wrote. The teacher could scaffold them throughout the year and fade them only when the students had mastered their work. With micro-writing strategies, teachers are able to extend the practice time, which is critical in consolidating learning.

After the pilot study, the school started grouping similar ability students in a class for ease of teaching and scaffolding. They also incorporated the various micro-writing strategies and scaffolds in their composition lesson plans. Students can therefore benefit from a coherent learning program, which enabled them greater flexibility to learn at their own pace.

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The Profound Sense of Dissatisfaction: A Comparative Study of Franz Kafka’s A Hunger Artist and Maulana Jalalu-d'-Din

Muhammad i Rumi’s A Man of Baghdad

Noorbakhsh Hooti Razi University, Faculty of Arts, English Department, Kermanshah, Iran


Mohammad Reza Moradi Borna Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran


Abstract

This study delves into investigating Kafka’s A Hunger Artist and Rumi’s A Man of Baghdad, in which they have dramatized sense of dissatisfaction, its causes and consequences in a symbolic manner. In fact, it has utilized the story of Rumi that its main character is in a condition similar to the main character in Kafka’s story. In both stories the main characters somehow are imprisoned in their ideals, and what distinguishes between these two stories is the different viewpoints that they adopt in confronting their ideals. Actually, the limited view of human beings and being detached from reality, and actually being detached from themselves, has been considered the main cause of dissatisfaction. So, the flagrant relationship among human ideals, enjoyment, and suffering is resulted from their intangible borders. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to reveal the human choices in searching for happiness, escaping from the sense of dissatisfaction, and manifold encounters with reality, and ultimately attaching to the ideals that are embedded in the themes of the both stories.

Keywords: Kafka, Rumi, Dissatisfaction, Limited View

1. Introduction

Dissatisfaction can be viewed as a feeling, which may indicate you lack the satisfying mental solace, and what you have gained is not that you deserve, or the circumstances in which you are placed, are not as perfect it ought to be to make you satisfied. In fact, some events must occur in the future, and some changes must take place in the world so that you can reach the sense of perfection. Krishnamurti states: “Your consciousness, with which you have identified yourself as your ‘individual’ consciousness, is an illusion. It is the consciousness of the rest of mankind”.(1984, p.68). As a matter of fact, it can be stated that displeasure is the product of conflicts, conflicts which start growing in human minds and generally as human life goes on, its conflicts become more tangible, and these conflicts can cause more dissatisfaction; the conflicts that are resulted from the different ways that are situated in front of the individual and he must choose. Since he does not have an accurate criterion for his choices, he somehow rambles between the different ways. So, he finds the best way to escape from the dilemma, resorting to ideals. So, he deprives himself of thinking about other ways; in fact, he deprives himself of thinking about life.

2. An outline of A Hunger Artist

A Hunger Artist is about an artist, who by showing his ability in bearing hunger for a long time in a cage, tries to attract people’s attention. He is honest in what he does, and he extremely wants people to trust him, and people’s suspicion towards his ability irritates him and makes him dissatisfied. After some time, people lose their interest in watching his shows and nobody comes to watch him. So, he goes to a circus and there, in a cage close to other animals performs his show hoping to be seen, but again there, people rarely come to watch him and mostly prefer to watch the passionate animals. Finally the supervisor of the circus orders to take him off the cage and put a young panther in his place, when people see the panther, they get excited and a mass of crowd come to watch the young panther.

3. An outline of A Man of Baghdad

The present story dramatizes a man from Baghdad, who is in great distress and in his dream, he sees the place of a treasure in Egypt. So, he travels to Egypt to find the treasure. When he arrives there, a guard who thinks he is a thief arrests him and starts beating him. The man from Baghdad explains his reasons for coming there, and the guard believes what he says. The guard tells him that he has seen a treasure in his dreams several times likewise, but the guard calls the man a foolish person, because of coming there to find the treasure. The treasure that the guard used to see in his dreams

ALLS 5(1):53-57, 2014 54 is in Baghdad and indeed, in the house of the man from Baghdad. So, the man from Baghdad returns to Baghdad and finds the treasure.

4. Internal Sense of Dissatisfaction

In human mind, there is a gap between what is and what ought to be. When it is not pleasant, some ideals start shaping in human mind, and man loathes reality. It causes the man to look at far beyond and try to find happiness somewhere else. Making and having ideals are the easiest job to escape from reality. Heidegger believes:

The last man must move in a realm of ideas which blink at everything and can do nothing else but blink, in consequence of an unearthly fate that forbids modern man to look beyond himself and his type of ideas.(1968, p.83).

So, the more ideals expand, the more human being goes farther from the reality and himself, as far as he cannot recognize the difference between reality and fantasy. In fact, he reaches a point that he only can live by ideals and dissatisfaction with the status quo. In the modern world which is full of motley and glamorous ideals, most people live in a cage of ideals, a cage that from their point of view is so beautiful, and there is no desire to leave the autistic cell.

From an analytic point, the inner richness makes human accept the realities of life, but the bedridden cultures that assign more possessing and soliciting, basic terms for being blissful and successful, put human being in a dilemma where he must choose between wanting and struggling for more or having a natural life along with serenity and satisfaction, but generally human gets in line with the medium culture. So, he struggles much more than what is necessary for a happy and healthy life and exclude himself from the beauties of life. Tolle opines: “Most people in their restless search for something significant to happen to them, continuously miss the insignificant, which may not be insignificant at all.”(2005, p.142). So the predominant sense which he mostly feels is nothing except discontent and insecurity. So with these qualities the human commits to his demands, a tremendous commitment, which will overshadow his life. He inevitably builds a wall around himself to keep himself from the minatory factors that can challenge his future and ideals. So, many aspects of life become pointless to him and he transforms into a one-dimensional person, who has lost the sense of creativity in his actions. His relationship with others will be based on personal interests and desires, and also loses the ability of enjoying life and its simplicities. Eventually, he may become a person who lives in seclusion, where his soul is not satisfied with this state, but he is extremely faithful to his demands and is stranded on an island which is surrounded by discontent. Throughout human history, a great number of utopias have been offered to human being by the various schools of thought. In other words, human beings have been offered a place free from suffering where everything is desirable, and each one of them has shown a different way to achieve perfection. Every human being, based on his experiences and mental backgrounds, has a specific definition of happiness in his mind, and this can be besides the ideals that differ in different intellectual schools. Every man has some ideals in his mind and tries to achieve his personal ideals. This study describes each individual’s personal ideals that determine his path of life, character, and even his social status. In other words, every human being can be defined by his ideals; the ideals that can be true or false or can be hidden in his subconscious mind, in a way that he may not be aware of. Human ideals portend prosperity and happiness, and make him try to get himself closer to them. On the other hand, the ideals limit human minds and set a specific thing as the only way to achieve happiness. So, as much as human ideals are great and respectful, he is still a limited and one-dimensional person that is incapable of understanding the totality of life. In truth, our argument is not concerned with the evil or normative ideals, but the matter is the sense of contention that cannot be grasped merely by regarding one dimension of life. So, all aspects of life are interconnected and have influence on each other. If a person only looks at a separate part of life, but ignores the rest, cannot have a genuine cognition of himself and as well as the life, even if he has a wide range of ideals in his mind. Indeed, because of his lack of understanding of the other factors, which impact on his life, everything he achieves can be affected and changed by the other effective factors, although may not be what he has desired. So, he would not reach satisfaction. Therefore, life has pleasant and unpleasant aspects that both must be considered in selecting targets. If human being just desires to be satisfied and looks at the world with a limited view, there will be lots of factors that can dissatisfy him.

5. The Failure of Idealistic Satisfaction

Kafka’s story introduces the main character as a hunger artist who by bearing hunger for a long time tries to draw the audience’s admiration. Here again, there can be a symbolic contradiction that is dramatized by showing needlessness to physical food, at the same time the need for attracting people to see him or somehow gain a mental nourishment. In fact hunger and suffering that he imposes on himself can be the symbols of agonies that human being catches in society. In this story in a hyperbolic manner, it has been tried to portray the agonies that human soul suffers from; that is the excruciated soul that has brought objectivity to itself in a physically thin and weak body inside a cage, and a man who has chosen being in a cage and actually cares about other people’s judgment. He enjoys being seen and observed by the others as if he would feel safe by doing this; he is a character, who is afraid of being free, but struggles to seem extraordinary. So, he makes an attempt to attract the positive judgments of the others by torturing himself in the cage to fill the gap that is in his existence. Other’s suspicion to his ability extremely excruciates him; the following extract shows this matter:

for the initiates knew well enough that during his fast the artist would never in any circumstances, not even under forcible compulsion, swallow the smallest morsel of food; the honor of his profession forbade it. Not every watcher, of course, was capable of understanding this, there were often groups of night watchers who

ALLS 5(1):53-57, 2014 55 were very lax in carrying out their duties and deliberately huddled together in a retired corner to play cards with great absorption, obviously intending to give the hunger artist the chance of a little refreshment, which they supposed he could draw from some private hoard. Nothing annoyed the artist more than such watchers; they made him miserable; they made his fast seem unendurable; sometimes he mastered his feebleness sufficiently to sing during their watch for as long as he could keep going, to show them how unjust their suspicions were. But that was of little use; they only wondered at his cleverness in being able to fill his mouth even while singing.(Kafka, 1971, pp.301-302).

As the title of the story presents this story shows, an artist and somehow implicitly refers to hunger. In fact, the artist’s attempt to attract the audience can pretend his mental hunger that he suffers from, the immense need for being seen. Here, an artist has been dramatized, who in a passive way is trying to prove his abilities, and actually by imposing hunger on himself seeks something, which is so important to him. On the other side, in Rumi’s story the Baghdadi man, in a different manner and actively travels to a far place. The hunger artist and the Baghdadi man seek something, and actually, they go to fulfill their desires alike. The common point in two stories can be that both characters in these stories by following an ideal try to fulfill their desideration. In A Hunger Artist, Kafka somehow has sympathized with the hunger artist and his torment, but he does not consider anybody blameworthy, and what he has dramatized, encounters different thoughts and desires. The short story also challenges the social ethics and scrutinizes a person, who tries to be a moral and an honest person as the people wish, but nobody believes him; ethics that seem to be baseless and nobody cares about them, except the hunger artist. It seems that he has been suffering from the other people’s negligence towards his honesty in his work, and in a symbolic manner, this can dramatize the negligence of the people to ethics in the modern time in which nobody expects honesty and truthfulness from the others, and this negligence extremely irritates him. The following extract of the short story can show the same:

For he alone knew, what no other initiate knew, how easy it was to fast. It was the easiest thing in the world. He made no secret of this, yet people did not believe him, at the best they set him down as modest, most of them, however, thought he was out for publicity or else was some kind of cheat who found it easy to fast because he had discovered a way of making it easy, and then had the impudence to admit the fact, more or less.(Kafka, 1971, pp.302-303).

The hunger artist, in the cage has separated himself from the other people, and without communicating with people, attempts to prove himself to the other people. So, this matter can be because of his fear from facing the reality whatever he cares about; actually, an ideal that maybe for the other people is just such a trivial thing that people consider it mere entertainment. Hence, he cannot have a genuine understanding of people’s opinions, and mutually the people cannot properly understand his intentions. In Rumi’s story, when the Baghdadi man faces the guard, while the guard assumes that he is a thief, starts beating him. He talks to the guard and explains the reason of his coming to that city. So, at the end, the guard believes in what he says. Therefore, here the Baghdadi man entails himself in communicating with the others, and actually, involves himself in the flow of life. Through his all power, he tries to reveal the reality of his intentions. Both the Baghdadi man and the hunger artist are honest in what they do, but the only difference between them is their approach in encountering other people, so this difference can have led to absolutely different results. To be honest, the limited view of human being towards life is one of the most important causes of dissatisfaction and suffering. Life gives the human being lots of opportunities, but when he just looks at one single part of its innumerable aspects and when he cannot be successful in that part he will be full of sense of dissatisfaction. Here, Kafka concisely shows the hunger artist’s limited view: “for adopting another profession, he was not only too old for that but too fanatically devoted to fasting.”(Kafka, 1971, 306). Actually, when the hunger artist loses his spectators, he does not desist following his ideal and by feeling a deep sense of dissatisfaction again sought satisfaction. In Rumi’s story, the Baghdadi man, who is in great distress, follows a new ideal, and in order to gain that travels to a far place. Actually, he was not attached to a special aspect of life and tried to examine the different ways; however, it cannot be said that the Baghdadi man chose the right way. Here, what is important is that he was not sure of the correctness of his ideal, and simply by venturing tried to examine its correctness.

Therefore, the man who is honest in his job and thinks he is a righteous person, at the same time is strongly dissatisfied. Here, he considers himself a righteous person and in return expects to be admired by the others, as if he were a businessman and dealing with honesty and ethics. Hooti and Mahmoudi (2013) implicitly aver that mankind has lost his genuine self. Actually when his shows were not charming for people anymore, the tiredness of human beings from fake ethics can be inferred. Then, the hunger artist goes to a circus in a cage close to the other animals hoping to be seen by the people and continues his show, but when the people reluctantly watch him and prefer to pay visit to the other animals, it can be stated that, this is a kind of human reference to his natural ego and spontaneity and avoiding exposing the inflexible ethics. This extract shows this matter:

it was exhilarating to watch the crowds come streaming his way, until only too soon --not even the most obstinate self-deception, clung to almost consciously, could hold out against the fact -- the conviction was borne in upon him that these people, most of them, to judge from their actions, again and again, without exception, were all on their way to the menagerie.(Kafka, 1971, p.307).

ALLS 5(1):53-57, 2014 56 Here, the hunger artist clearly knows the truth, and he sees the collapsing of his ideals in front of his eyes. Even though he realizes that accomplishing his ideals is almost impossible; he again somehow enjoys thinking about them, as if he could not accept that the way he had chosen, was far from the reality. In Rumi’s story when the guard said to Baghdadi man:

You must be a fool to journey all this distance merely on the faith of a dream. I myself have many times dreamt of a treasure lying hid in a certain spot in Baghdad, but was never foolish enough to go there.(Rumi, 1887, p.322).

As if the Baghdadi man faced the reality, and because he was not trying to accomplish what was impossible contrary to the hunger artist, he changed his way, and his actions were based on what appeared to be the reality.

Krishnamurti implies: “unfortunately, while we are so occupied with outward activity—like the ants that are everlastingly busy—we do not see that, inwardly, we are slowly dying”.(1993, p.21). In his last words’ the hunger artist properly reveals his conflict and profound dissatisfaction. The following words indicate the same:

I always wanted you to admire my fasting," said the hunger artist. "We do admire it," said the overseer, affably. "But you shouldn't admire it," said the hunger artist. "Well then we don't admire it," said the overseer, "but why shouldn't we admire it?" "Because I have to fast, I can't help it," said the hunger artist. "What a fellow you are," said the overseer, "and why can't you help it?" "Because," said the hunger artist, lifting his head a little and speaking, with his lips pursed, as if for a kiss, right into the overseer's ear, so that no syllable might be lost, "because I couldn't find the food I liked. If I had found it, believe me, I should have made no fuss and stuffed myself like you or anyone else.(Kafka, 1971, p.309).

Here, he does not know what he exactly desires; on the other hand, he only searches the sense of satisfaction in bearing and showing hunger. He does not bring his ideals under suspicion and does not think about their degree of correctness. In fact, the events that occur to him do not change his approach. So, in A Hunger Artist, maybe, the people desired to be admired by the others, but for being admired, they did not limit their lives in a limited aspect of life. In the anecdote, the guard told the Baghdadi man that he had seen several times a treasure in his dreams. Here, the place of treasure that the guard used to see in his dreams was exactly in Baghdadi man’s house. So, it can symbolically refer to the ideal that the Baghdadi man used to follow is something that the other people also have in their minds, but just a few people like the Baghdadi man go to examine them. They finally reach this point that they cannot find happiness anywhere except in their own houses and actually inside themselves. The short story, A Hunger Artist shows somebody, who is staying in a cage as if he were awaiting his death, and because he cannot find his desirable food, he eats nothing. This sentence can be the symbol of an exalted will or ideal that dramatizes a man who has focused on a prominent ideal and being busy with that ideal, has forced himself to ignore the rest of things in presence. So, it can refer that he is lost or he has lost something. From an analytic vision, the panther in the last sentences of the story can refer to that missing thing, which he could not find by bearing hunger for many years. He was in the cage by his own choice, but they had put the panther in the same cage against its will. What the panther had, was the sense of freedom and great interest for living, but that artist was imprisoned by his own thoughts and judges. In fact, the panther was harmonized with the flowing of life and was like a roaring river, which that cage was only like a flagstone in its way. So, he did not remain behind the flagstone fixed, but changed its way and continued to be flowing and being alive with its full strength. This extract shows this matter:

Into the cage they put a young panther. Even the most insensitive felt it refreshing to see this wild creature leaping around the cage that had so long been dreary. The panther was all right. The food he liked was brought him without hesitation by the attendants; he seemed not even to miss his freedom; his noble body, furnished almost to the bursting point with all that it needed, seemed to carry freedom around with it too; somewhere in his jaws it seemed to lurk; and the joy of life streamed with such ardent passion from his throat that for the onlookers it was not easy to stand the shock of it. But they braced themselves, crowded around the cage, and did not want ever to move away.(Kafka, 1971, pp.309-310) .

Desires make human move and he can have limitless desires, as well. However, there is no guaranty for human desires to be fulfilled. Giddens believes: “How can we constantly keep in forefront of our minds dangers which are enormously threatening, yet so remote from individual control? The answer is that most of us cannot.”(1990, pp.131-132). In A Hunger Artist, the main character can be the symbol of an individual, whose main desire has not been fulfilled. His frail, thin, motionless and glum body and feature, and as well as his dissatisfaction are the symbol of a human soul that hopelessly insists on fulfilling his desire. In fact, he has a little power to continue. Rumi’s story shows a man, who hopefully follows a dream in a far distant place, and this story also can be the symbol of a human being who follows an ideal as it has been dramatized in A Man of Baghdad, Therefore, this article strives to swell the coextensive interconnectedness that seems to be embodied in the both stories. Man always feels a missing spirituality in his existence as if one part of his soul cries and invites him towards itself and promises him the eternal blessing and affluence. On the other hand, he tries to gain lots of things to reach the satisfaction, which like a shadow escapes from him. There are always signs in life to show man the right way, but actually most of the time his limited thinking prevents him from changing his way. Animals instinctively find their path of life, but man sees various ways in front of himself to choose, and there are lots of factors such as culture, family, and the way he has grown up and lots of other things, which are responsible for the nature of his selection. He ordinarily looks at life from a specific point of view

ALLS 5(1):53-57, 2014 57 with a peculiar thinking format, and based on that specific format, chooses his life path; a safe path that lots of people have covered, so the possibility of gaining what he has in his mind can be overly high. Otteson explored:

As people find ways that allow them to successfully negotiate interactions with others, their successes, as well as their failures, are precedents that they will follow in future similar cases. Their success will also be imitated by others who observe them and also want to succeed in similar circumstances. It is in this way that social practices are born, become habits, and sometimes coalesce into principles and rules.(2006, p.323).

Meanwhile, there are few people who are against others and take step in an unsafe path and listen to their inner voices when the existing ways do not please them. These people mostly do not know what they want, they just know what they wish is beyond the typical results that others constantly talk about them, and throughout reaching these results they may consider themselves prosperous people. To be honest, man lives with his thoughts and interpretations, so what is real for someone may have another meaning for someone else. Everybody has a meaning for happiness and when one finds out that attaining his criteria of happiness is somehow impossible, he may act in two different ways, first like the Baghdadi man, who gets paranoid to his criteria and finds his thoughts false and changes his way, or he may act like the hunger artist who, hopelessly continues his way, and relates the reason of his dissatisfaction to the low and wrong comprehension of the other people. Hooti and Mahmoudi(2013) imply that human being has been encaged in the resilient unconsciousness. Baghdadi man’s travel to Egypt can symbolically dramatize that, to find happiness how one gets far from itself, and how he gets alienated from his own self. So, like the hunger artist who, could have the sense of freedom and satisfaction in the cage but groped around for it in the other’s judgments and admirations; he became far from himself as much that he went to a circus but people preferred to watch passionate animals rather than him. Realistically, his work was finished with no sense of satisfaction.

6. Conclusion

This study tried to show that man feels safe by having ideals that somehow give him pleasure, and at the same time make him feel dissatisfied. So considering excessive ideals may lead man to be negligent towards the other parts of life. An ideal by itself is not valuable for man, but hoping to get a veritable sense of satisfaction that can be resulted from them, makes man follow them. Indeed, the study strove to reveal this probable sense that was in the themes of the both stories.

Life is not predictable and is full of events that man is not prepared to confront with, so he imprisons himself in a cage which its bars are built from his thoughts and prejudgments and actually looks at the outside world through this cage, because it is much safer. Hence, most of the human beings have their own cage and through that cage interpret life. So behind every interpretation of life and its events there is a limited view and some fear of confronting what is called life.

References

Giddens, A. (1990). The Consequences of Modernity. Oxford: Polity Press & Blackwell.

Heidegger, M. (1968). What Is Called Thinking?, Glenn Gray (Trans.). New York: Harper & Row.

Hooti, N.& Mahmoudi, Y. (2013). Black Veil of Ignorantism under the Unconscious Conscience of Human Soul in Shirley Jackson’s Lottery. International Research Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences, 5(10), 1245-1251.

Hooti, N., & Mahmoudi, Y. (2013). Identity Discordianism Under the Trepidation and Duplicity of Human Essence: A trenchant investigation on Luigi Pirandello’War. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 3(7), 1209-1213.

Kafka, F. (1971). A Hunger Artist, Willa and Muir (Trans.) and N.Glatzer (Edt.). New York: Schocken Books.

Krishnamurti, J.(1993). A Timeless Spring. New York: Krishnamurti Foundation of America & Krishnamurti Foundation Trust Ltd.

Krishnamurti, J.(1984). The Flame of Attention. New York: Harper & Row.

Otteson, R.J.(2006). Actual Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Rumi, J.M. (1887). Masnavi i Ma’navi: The Spiritual Couplets, Whinfield (Trans.). London: Trübner and Company.

Tolle, E.(2005). A New Earth: Awakening to your life’s purpose. Retrieved 11/9/2013 from

http://res.allpdftools.com/allpdftools/pdf-download-respurces/A New Earth.pdf



A Brilliant Example for Women—Comments on My Brilliant Career

Xiuqing Zhang

Business College of Beijing Union University, Yangjingli Road, Beijing 100025, China



Abstract

Based on the theory of American feminist critic Elaine Showalter，this paper analyzes a peculiar feature of early Australian novel My Brilliant Career and discovers that it spans three phases of Women’s Literature. Through her indefatigable strive for equality between men and women, independent personality and self-fulfillment, the bush girl Sybylla in the novel had set a brilliant example for today’s women.

Keywords: My Brilliant Career; Sybylla; Phases of Women’s Literature; struggle

1. Introduction

Reading Australian early novel My Brilliant Career, I was deeply impressed by the fragrance of the bush landscape penetrating through the whole novel as well as amazed by the extraordinary literary gift of the sixteen-year–old young girl who finished the great work within a few weeks. The writer of the novel Miles Franklin (1879—1954) by name was one of the most famous woman writers in Australia, and her maiden work, being considered an Australian classic, caused a great sensation throughout the Australian literary circles since its publication in 1901. The founder of Australian realism Henry Lawson wrote Preface to the book and sang high praise of the novel, “the descriptions of bush life and scenery came startlingly, painfully real to me, and I know that, as far as they are concerned, the book is true to Australia ——the truest I ever read”. The novel was acclaimed as “the first Australian novel” by A·G· Stephenson. Miles Franklin has had a long-lasting impact on Australian literary life through her endowment of a Australia’s most prestigious literary award known as the Miles Franklin Award, which is an annual literary prize to encourage and support writers of Australian literature and is awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases".The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin, who is best known for writing My Brilliant Career and for bequeathing her estate to fund this prestigious award.

My Brilliant Career was regarded as Australia’s Jane Eyre and has been a typical text for feminism analysis.

In Toward a Feminist Poetics, American feminist critic Elaine Showalter traces the history of woman's literature, suggesting that it can be divided into three phases: Feminine, Feminist and Female. In the Feminine phase (1840–1880), “women wrote in an effort to equal the intellectual achievements of the male culture, and internalized its assumptions about female nature”. Women writers tended to imitate the literature of patriarchy and write under a male pseudonym. The Feminist phase (1880–1920) was characterized by women’s writing that protested against male standards and values, and advocated women’s rights and values, including a demand for autonomy. The Female phase (1920— ) is one of self-discovery. Showalter says, “women reject both imitation and protest two forms of dependency—and turn instead to female experience as the source of an autonomous art, extending the feminist analysis of culture to the forms and techniques of literature”. The three phrases overlap sometimes and the special significance of My Brilliant Career lies in its spanning the three phrases mentioned above.

2. Hard Struggles

First, the name of the writer Miles Franklin sounded like a male writer’s name. By adopting a male pseudonym, the writer would be likely to remove readers’ prejudice against women under such a situation that men were the master of the literary circles. The narrator of the novel repeatedly expressed her hope that one day she could clasp hands with Australian male writers Lawson and Peterson, and feel the unspeakable comfort and heart-rest of congenial companionship. But to her disappointment, it was impossible for a woman to set up and keep Plato friendship with men. Her consciousness of being independent and brave exactly showed that the novel belonged to the first phase mentioned above.

All the stories revolved around protagonist Sybylla Melvyn who was depicted as the first full and rebellious female image in Australian literary history. Her rebelliousness was manifested in the following three aspects, which shows that the novel belonged to the second phase of Women’s Literature---the Feminist phase.

ALLS 5(1):58-61, 2014 59 2.1 Sybylla’s struggle against her living environment

Sybylla’s independent ego results from the influence of bush environment, and her battling personality is displayed in her ambivalent attitudes towards marriage. Endowed with bush spirit, Sybylla cherished high ambitions and typified Australian bush intellectual women. She struggled unswervingly against the environment and society that hindered her personality development. Her actions were closely related with the voice of the times when people were eager to change social reality and establish Australian nationalism. Sybylla strived for her independent personality and struggled continuously, which reflected the spirit of the times and constituted a part of it.Primitive bush environment and hard life shaped her character of being rugged, shrewish and strong like a man. In the novel, her life was full of ups and downs with the change of her living places. Since her childhood, Sybylla spent many hours on household drudgery, wood-cutting, milking and gardening in Possum Gully which in the girl’s eyes was dreary, wing-clipping, mind-starving, monotonous and stagnant. But under such a hard living environment, Sybylla had her own dreams and vision of life different from those common village girls, for they were not interested in the outside world nor did they know anything about it. They had but two states of existence---work and sleep. They were taught to find a good husband to live a better life.

But unlike other girls, Sybylla was quite special and peculiar in terms of her personal interest and lifelong pursuit for arts and literature. Besides work and sleep, there was a third part in Syballa which carried out to be fed. She longed for the arts and had a passion for music and literature. Under such a harsh living condition, we could hardly imagine a girl would have such high pursuit of arts and literature. Her desire for art had never perished as time went by. She read extensively the famous works of British writers and learned by heart the works of Australian writers such as Peterson and Lawson. She lived a dream-life with writers, artists and musicians. She often purloined paper and sneaked out of bed every night at one or two o’clock to write a prodigious novel in point of length and detail. Through her broad reading, Sybylla knew of every celebrity in literature, art, music and drama. Their world was her world and in fancy she lived with them. The more she read, the less satisfied she felt about her monotonous life. She had a dream of entering the artistic world. And her dream penetrated through the whole novel. No matter how hard the natural environment and her living conditions were, her aspiration for and pursuit of arts never died out.

Sybylla was never content with her living environment; her steps and rhythm were incompatible with the surroundings. “How coarse and grating were the sounds to be heard around me! Lack, nay, not lack, but utter freedom from the first instincts of cultivation, was to be heard even in the great heavy footfalls and the rasping sharp voices which fell on my ears.” (Franklin, 1981:95) She longed to be out in the stream of life.

2.2 Sybylla’s struggle against her family

Sybyllas, as a child, had her own opinions and she was hard to be controlled by her parents. At the age of 15, their crops were withering in the fields for want of rain, the family could not afford to keep all the children at home, and obviously it was not an over-bright outlook. Sybylla’s mother thought of a way out. “I will have to give the little kids to some of the relatives; the bigger ones will have to go out to service.” Sybylla protested, “Why can’t we live at home? Others have no bigger places than we, and families just as large, and yet they make a living. It would be terrible for the little ones to grow up separated; they would be no more to each other than strangers.” (Franklin, 1981:29) She could not follow her mother’s ideas to be a general servant, a cook, a hospital nurse, or a tutor. In her mother’s eyes, she was really a useless girl for her age. She thought her mother’s arrangement was nothing but her continued vain struggle in the morass of life, which would not be helpful of changing her living predicament. Her hope would come to naught.

Sybylla quarreled with her mother, and her feelings toward her father changed from admiration to contempt as she grew up and began to have her sense of self-consciousness and judgment of right and wrong. Her father Richard Melvyn used to hold three stations and was admitted into swelldom merely by right of his position. Mr. Melvyn was “my hero, confidant, encyclopedia, and mate… a fine fellow in those days, a kind and indulgent parent, a chivalrous husband, a capital host, a man full of ambition and gentleness.” (Franklin, 1981:2)At that time, Mr. Melvyn was perfect in her daughter’s eyes and Sybylla’s short but happy childhood came to an end when they moved to Possum Gully where Melvyn indulged in drinking and gambling which soon left him on the verge of bankruptcy. He was heavily in debt and shifted the heavy burden of family onto his wife. He failed to support his family and to fulfill the family obligations. He seemed to lose all love and interest in his family, and grew cross and silent, utterly without pride and pluck. Sybylla tracked her father from one pub to another and brought his drunken father back home often after midnight. Now his father was an irresponsible father and husband. Sybylla began to contempt her father and considered him a despicable, selfish, weak creature. Under such a circumstance, Sybylla’s mother still required her to respect her father, but she had different opinion and disagreed with her mother and showed hatred and contempt to her father who degraded from a hero to a drunken.

Sybylla began to feel sympathy for her mother and thought women like her mother were property and slave of men, and they knew nothing but sacrifice. Her mother was all gentleness and refinement, but the polish has been worn off it by years and years of scrubbing and scratching, and washing and patching, and poverty and husbandly neglect, and the bearing of burdens too heavy for delicate shoulders. Her mother had yielded up her youth, freedom, strength, and sacrificed the greatest possession of woman for her sad life. It could be said that it was Sybylla’s family that woke up her female consciousness and made her realize that women should strive for equal rights and status as men in society

ALLS 5(1):58-61, 2014 60 instead of being subject to men when getting married. Women should break their traditional life track, get rid of the yoke of family and realize their ideals.

2.3 Sybylla’s struggle against traditional moral values

Marriage remained a central and engrossing theme for 19th-century novelists. Sybylla’s story is no exception.

Women’s life stories around Sybylla made her realize that women were fettered and ruined by marriage, and they were subject to men. “Marriage” was the only profession open to women in the 19th century. Being good wives and mothers, attending to their homes and doing what God intended were established principles for women to follow. Just as Sybylla’s grandmother put it, “a girl’s only proper sphere in life was marriage”. Women depended on men physically, financially and spiritually. Women with such qualities as humility, obedience, sacrifice and selflessness were ideal roles in society. Men shackled women’s minds by traditional social values and the relationship between men and women became one of the conqueror and the conquered. As a British woman writer Marion Reid pointed out in her work A Plea for Women(1843),“Most girls are given merely ‘cramps and confines’, any symptom of independent thought is quickly depressed...the majority of girls are subdued into mere automatons. Most girls are brought up to a mechanical performance of duty, their own minds are lying barren and unfruitful. She argues that there is no reason why women should be limited to domesticity. She admits that most women go about their household duties in a cold, hard, mechanical, loveless spiritless way. (Walters,2008) Women could only find their proper position in marriage or family, women’s education is confined and limited. Women are subject to men and they should fulfill domestic responsibilities.

As for Sybylla, considering that she could never gain the equal personality and status with men in marriage, the heroine was determined not to marry in her lifetime, which was the most desperate condemnation of the traditional society. In real life, the writer Miles Franklin herself did not get married. The novel reflected her true life in reality. From this point, My Brilliant Career belongs to the second phase of women’s literature------ the Feminist phase.

Sybylla believed that marriage appeared the most horribly tied-down and unfair-to-women existence going. She laughed at the idea of love and determined never, never, never to marry. Under this principle and self-created guidance, Sybylla was doomed to find no happiness in marriage. “As a little girl, I was filled with dreams of the great things as I was to do when grown up. My ambition was as boundless as the mighty bush in which I have always lived. It came home to me as a great blow that it was only men who could take the world by its ears and conquer their fate, while women, metaphorically speaking, were forced to sit with tied hands and patiently suffer as the waves of fate tossed them hither and thither, battering and bruising without mercy.” She could not see any hope for women to grasp their fate, give free play to their abilities and talent, and felt extremely disappointed in her struggle and revolt.

Her attitudes to marriage could be reflected in her relationship with three young men.

Her grandmother’s jackeroo Frank Hawden was healthy, had a good character, came of a high family and had a potential of being rich in three years. When he proposed to her, Sybylla replied, “I loathe and despise him. I would not marry him or any one like him though he were King of England. The idea of marriage even with the best man in the world seems to me a lowering thing, but with him it would be pollution---the lowest degradation that could be heaped upon me! I will never come down to marry any one.”(Franklin, 1981:84) Sybylla made her attitude towards marriage clear in her conflict with her first pursuer. Marriage, in her eyes, would not provide a happy and secure ending.

Another pursuer was a promising lawyer from Sydney, her grandmother’s adopted son, Everard Grey by name. He dabbled in all the arts---writing, music, acting and sketching, and went to every good concert and play in Sydney. His wit and humor brought her a lot of pleasure. What’s more important was that Grey appreciated Sybylla’s artistic talent, thought it a sin to have such exceptional talent wasting in the bush and promised to bring her to Sydney and put her under a good master. Though Sybylla was interested in his talk on art, her feeling to him was nothing but friendship. Hence when Grey proposed to her, she thought it ridiculous.

The love story of the novel depicted a perfect young bushman---- the hero Harold Beecham, who was tremendously tall, big, handsome, sober-minded, experienced, and well-behaved. That is to say he had all the good qualities of a perfect man. He had artistic talent, and was an excellent pianist, a gifted violinist, a singer with a strong, clear and well-trained tenor.

Apart from Beecham’s good inner accomplishments, the beginning of the story also described his wealthy family and successful career: He had an immense station, plenty of house-room, tennis courts, musical instruments, a river wherein to fish, swim and boat, any number of horses, vehicles, orchards, and gardens. Obviously Beecham’s house could be called a “paradise” once put in the 19th century social and living environment. There were a sharp contrast between his luxurious living conditions and Sybylla’s poor family. I am afraid every young girl would admire Beecham’s wealthy family. He loved Sybylla who has peculiar personal charm and they had a lot of carefree happiness. But in terms of marriage, Sybylla insisted on her principles: “I would not marry him even if I could. I am so sick of every one thinking I would marry any man for his possessions. I would not stoop to marry a king if I did not love him. As for trying to win a man, I would scorn any action that way; I never intend to marry. Instead of wasting so much money on me in presents and other ways, I wish you would get me something to do, a profession that will last me all my life, so that I may be independent.” (Franklin, 1981:132) During a quarrel, Sybylla said that she reserved the right of behaving as she pleased without Beecham’s permission, that is to say, she had right to be independent in thinking and action. After the quarrel, Sybylla drew the costly ring from her finger and tossed it to his feet with indifference and contempt. She said

ALLS 5(1):58-61, 2014 61 mockingly, “You thought you had a right to lecture me as your future slave! Just fancy! I never had the slightest intention of marrying you. You were so disgustingly conceited that I have been attempting to rub a little of it out of you. Marry you! Because the social laws are so arranged that a woman’s only sphere is marriage, and because they endeavor to secure a man who can give them a little more ease, you must not run away when you are only the bothersome appendage with which they would have to put up, for the sake of your property. And you must not think that because some women marry for a home they all will.” (Franklin, 1981:163)It indicates that she would not marry Beecham for his property and she would not be subject to a man, be his slave and lose her independence, her freedom and her career. On the contrary, she was eager to be her own master.

But after a series of sufferings and Beecham’s loss of his home and property, Sybylla agreed to marry him. On the surface, she thought Beecham needed her when he was penniless, but in a deep sense, if she married a man without property, it meant that she would not lose her independence. To gain her independence, she was willing to sacrifice. But when Beecham restored his lost property, regained his fame as a wealthy man and proposed to her, she refused his proposal considering that her independence would be controlled by his wealth. As a woman, she wanted to have independence and freedom of her own career. “He was rich; he would not need me now; my obligation to him ceased to exist; I was free. He would no longer wish to be hampered with me. He could take his choice of beauty and worth.”(Franklin, 1981:235) “He offered me everything---but control.” (Franklin, 1981:255) It could be seen that Sybylla was doomed to part from Beecham. What she desired and what she despised was beyond her reach. Sybylla’s strive for her independent personality and equality between men and women reflected the voice of feminists in the 19th century.

3. Conclusion The novel showed a young girl’s self-consciousness and self-fulfillment under the cruel natural and social environment, which indicated that the novel also belonged to the third phase of Women’s Literature. Sybylla’s dream for art and her reality was too far. Her remarkable gift enabled her to pursue a brilliant career, but her living environment, the social environment and her family environment burst the bubble of her ideal.

In the novel, terrible scenes appeared before the 15-year-old-girl filled with great expectations and yearnings for life: The day was hot, dry, a time when it was impossible to make a living. The scorching furnace-breath winds shriveled every blade of grass, dust and the moan of starving stock filled the air, vegetables became a thing of the past. The calves she had reared died one by one, and the cows followed in their footsteps. The title of the novel “my brilliant career” first appeared in Chapter Five. Faced with drought day after day, the narrator used twelve “Weariness” to describe everything around her and introduce the title, “This was life—my life— my career, my brilliant career!” Under the poor and hard living conditions, the bush girl did not realize her dream of “having a brilliant career’, and in fact it was impossible for her to have a “brilliant career” in the 19th century Australian social life. It was a strong conflict between ideal and reality.

In the 19th century, Australia was a British colony which suffered a great deal from hard and harsh natural environment and economic depression, and the early Australians had to slog against such natural disasters as flood, fire, droughts, pests, stock diseases, and women were confined to dairy farms. But Sybylla was different, she had a strong desire for being the master of her fate. She was a lonely, brave and helpless fighter, in spite of her poor living situations, she was not blinded nor twisted by wealth, position, and power of any man around her. Though Sybylla did not realize her dream of having a “brilliant career”, she had set a brilliant example for all the women today, that is, women should strive for their self-improvement, self-support and self-fulfillment so as to achieve self-perfection and make more contributions to society and human civilization.

References

Chen, M. (2007). A Bush Girl Fighting Against Marriage---- On the Image of the Heroine in the Australian Novel My Brilliant Career. Journal of Xihua University, 26, 1-6. Franklin, M.(1981). My Brilliant Career. New York. Washington Square Press. Huang, Y. (2007). My Brilliant Career.Shanghai: Shanghai Yi Wen Publishing House. Shi, F. and Yu, M. (2007). Image of the Heroines in My Brilliant Career. Journal of Mianyang Normal University, 26, 83-85. Showalter, E. (1978). A Literature of Their Own: British Novelist from Bronte to Lessing. London: Virago. Walters, M. (2008).Feminism, A Very Short Introduction. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 41-42. Xiang, Xiaohong. (2005).The Origin of Australian Women Novels. Journal of Xihua University, 12, 41-44. Xu, Q. and Zhu, S. (2013). Miles Franklin: Personality Conflicts and Female Predicament. Journal of Xi’an International Studies University, 21, 81-84. Zhu, S. and Xu, Q.(2013). Body, Gender, Lack: On Feminine Inferiority in My Brilliant Career. Journal of Hefei University of Technology, 27,58-63.



Teacher's feedback and student's preferences in an Advanced Writing Course: A Case Study

Mohammad Aliakbari (Corresponding author)

Dept. of English, Ilam University PO Box 516, Ilam 69315, Iran E-mail: [email protected]

Hossein Raeesi

Dept. of English, Ilam University PO Box 516, Ilam 69315, Iran E-mail: [email protected]


Abstract This paper was intended to examine teacher's corrective feedback and student's preferences in an advanced writing course. The study was conducted using a questionnaire as the instrument and 15 MA TEFL students from Ilam state university in Iran as the participants. The students were asked to prioritize among a list of ten aspects of error correction and feedback. The findings made it clear that a high majority of the students chose to be corrected, commented, and guided on the issue of organization as their first priority. The results further specified that instructors should realize that advanced students do not like to be treated in the same way as the elementary and intermediate pupils do. Otherwise, it may result in students' discontent and boredom in educational setting. Keywords: Teacher's corrective feedback, Student's preferences, Advanced writing, MA TEFL students 1. Introduction Matching the expectations of teachers and students is of high importance for successful language learning. According to Nunan (1995), “teachers should find out what their students think and feel about what and how they want to learn”. If students’ and teachers’ perceptions of instructional effectiveness do not match, it can lead to students’ discontent, thus impairing learning (Brown, 2009; Schulz, 2001). As a result, discovering students’ preferences and beliefs toward instructional practices will benefit teachers. Although most research in this area deal with elementary levels, this study investigates MA students' preferences in an advanced writing course. 2. Literature Review Many researchers have underscored the importance of the matching of teachers' and students' expectations for successful learning (e.g., Schulz, 2001; Horwitz, 1988; Nunan, 1987). Meanwhile, mismatches between teachers’ pedagogical practices and learners’ learning preferences were found in many studies (e.g., Hawkey, 2006; Schulz, 2001; Peacock, 2001; McCargar, 1993; Oladejo, 1993; Cathcart & Olsen, 1976). Many researchers reported unsatisfactory learning outcomes when there is a mismatch between teacher and student perceptions about the effectiveness of instructional practices (e.g., Schulz, 2001; Green & Oxford, 1995; Horwitz, 1988; Nunan, 1987). Several researchers have proposed an agreement between teachers' and students' expectations in order for feedback to be effective in writing skills (e.g., Plonsky & Mills, 2006; Diab, 2005; Jeon & Kang, 2005; Schulz, 2001; Hyland, 1998; Saito, 1994; Leki, 1991; Raimes, 1991). In their study regarding EFL and ESL college students’ preferences for receiving feedback on certain writing aspects, Hedgecock and Lefkowitz (1994) found that EFL college students prefer and value teacher feedback and corrections on grammatical, lexical, and surface-level features more than those on content and style, whereas ESL students prefer feedback on content to feedback on form. Kern (1995) compared foreign language students’ beliefs about language learning with those of their teachers. He found that students held beliefs about pronunciation, error correction, and the importance of learning grammar and vocabulary that were different from their instructors’. According to Schulz (2001), students may have widely differing views from teachers regarding how errors should be corrected in the classroom. Some studies have strongly revealed that a difference in beliefs can result in students' frustration and demotivation (e.g., Dornyei, 2003; Sakui & Gales, 1999). 3. Statement of the problem Iranian MA TEFL students are required to pass a two-credit course on advanced writing. This course is intended, among other things, to teach students how to write an academic paper or article. It is often observed that students make mistakes in their writing and instructors are often unaware of students' preferences to correction. Knowing their

ALLS 5(1):62-64, 2014 63 preferences toward correction, no doubt, can enable instructors to focus on highly desired aspects, allocating as much class time as possible to it. Teachers' corrective feedback and students' preferences in writing courses have been the focus of extensive research. While the majority of studies in this area have examined students' preferences in elementary and intermediate levels, less work has been done in advanced levels. Accordingly, this study aims to gain a deeper insight into MA TEFL students' preferences to corrective feedback in an advanced writing course in Ilam state university in Iran. 3.1 Research question What aspects of writing do students prefer to be corrected in an advanced writing course? 4. Method 4.1 Participants All 15 MA TEFL students of a class in Ilam University were chosen. Of this number of students, there were 9 females and 6 males and the age were above 24. Students majored in different fields of study at their BA program. 10 had a BA in English literature, 4 had a BA in translation, and 1 had a BA in TEFL. 4.2 Instrument In this study a questionnaire which was an adaptation of a similar work done in the area of corrective feedback at the elementary level was employed. To apply it to the participants in question, however, the authors had to add some more advanced error correction options to it. A copy of the questionnaire is appended to the end of paper. It consisted of 3 parts. The first part included some instructions on how the participants should respond to the questionnaire. The second part consisted of ten aspects of error correction arranged on a random basis. And finally the third part had ten blank spaces for the participants to put a number from 1 to 10 based on descending priorities. In order to assess the reliability of the study, test-retest method was employed. The re-test was carried out using ten percent of the students. It was found to be quite high reliable. With respect to validity of the content, it should be noted that these aspects are mainly based on the most widely used types of error corrections which occur in an advanced writing course. Besides, the list has been prepared based on the contents which are often covered in such a course and which already approved by the subject-area experts. 4.3 Procedure The questionnaires were distributed among all 15 MA TEFL students from Ilam state university in the spring academic term in May 2012 and then they were asked to return it within two days. They were also provided with explanations on how to fill the questionnaire. The data of the questionnaires were then typed into SPSS program and the percentage frequencies were then calculated. 5. Results This section includes the results of the study. The results are shown in the following Table1. The rows show the ten aspects of error correction and the columns show the priorities in a descending order. The table is followed by the discussion. Table 1. Priorities and percentage frequencies for each aspect of error correction as desired by students in and advanced

writing course

5.1 Discussion According to the table, 66.66 percent of the students wished to receive comments on the organization of a paper including how to write introduction, body, conclusion, support, etc. This noticeable figure highlighted the importance of organization as the highest priority for this group of MA students. In an advanced writing course the focus is on how to begin, continue, and end a paper.

P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10

Syntax and Grammar 13.33 6.66 13.33 0 0 13.33 6.66 20 26.66 6.66 Punctuation and spelling 0 0 0 0 6.66 0 13.33 6.66 33.3 40 Word choice 0 13.33 13.33 6.66 13.33 40 13.33 0 0 0 Transition words 0 6.66 0 6.66 0 0 40 33.3 13.33 0 Structure and organization 66.66 6.66 0 13.33 0 6.66 13.33 0 0 0 Thesis statement and blueprint 6.66 46.66 13.33 20 6.66 6.66 0 0 0 0 Coherence and cohesion 6.66 13.33 26.66 13.33 33.33 0 0 0 6.66 0 Contrastive analysis 0 0 0 6.66 6.66 13.33 6.66 20 13.33 26.66 Ideas expressed 0 6.66 20 6.66 20 6.66 0 20 6.66 13.33 Writing style 6.66 0 0 26.66 13.33 13.33 6.66 0 0 13.33

ALLS 5(1):62-64, 2014 64 The second high priority, according to the table, has to do with thesis statement and blueprint in writing. 46.66 percent of the participants chose to be commented on this aspect. This is also an advanced issue in writing an academic paper. It seems that almost half of the students have problems with this aspect, expecting the instructor to remedy this important dimension of writing. It seems that the students do not agree on the next three high priorities. This is implied by their dispersed opinions. No absolute choices can be observed for the aspects in question. The third high priority, according to the table, with 26.66 percent deals with text coherence and cohesion. This aspect along with the next two aspects falls between advanced issues and elementary ones. Interestingly, this aspect scored 33.33 percent for the fifth high priority. Generally, aspects regarding text coherence and writing style have been chosen as intermediate priorities. The table also shows that 40 percent of the students chose to be corrected on word choice as their sixth priority. Word choice aspect is almost near elementary and intermediate levels. Interestingly, this aspect, as a whole, falls in the midst of the priorities. The seventh and eighth priorities which have been chosen by a low majority of students are concerned with transition words. 40 percent of the students chose it as the seventh priority and 33.3 percent of the students chose it as the eighth priority. This item is also near elementary levels. And finally 40 percent of the students chose syntax and grammar as the least important priority. These surface-level errors are most often treated in the very beginning stages of writing, so it is natural for advanced level students not to wish to be corrected for these trivial things. It is inferred that content rather than form is of high importance to advanced level students. 6. Conclusion This case study concerning teacher's corrective feedback and student's priorities was conducted in the Ilam state university in Iran. A questionnaire comprising a list of ten aspects of error correction was used and 15 MA TEFL students as the participants were asked to prioritize. The findings showed that students preferred to be mostly corrected, commented, and guided with organizing a paper. The results also showed that issues such as correcting punctuation, spelling and grammatical errors had the least preferences. Other issues such as text coherence, transition words, etc. lied in the middle of preferences. In light of the findings, it was inferred that knowing the students' preferences toward correction will enable instructors to focus their energies on aspects on which most students agree and expect to be responded. Put another way, the matching of instructors' and students' expectations will result in the class time being spent effectively only for things which are highly demanded by students rather than for what the instructor thinks are necessary. Moreover, it was inferred that advanced students would not like to be behaved like the elementary ones. This would result in students' boredom and discontent. In conclusion, it has to be stated that due to the limited number of the participants involved, the results cannot be generalized to other situations. Consequently, this paper recommends that further study be conducted using a larger number of participants and more academic institutes. References Brown. A. (2009). Students’ and teachers’ perceptions of effective foreign language teaching: A comparison of ideals. Modern Language Journal, 93, 46-60. Cathcart, R. L., & Olsen, J. E. W. B. (1976). Teachers’ and students’ preferences for error correction of classroom conversation errors. In J. F. Fanselow and R. H. Crymes (Eds.), On TESOL ’76: Selections based on teaching done at the 10th annual TESOL convention (pp. 41-53). Washington: TESOL. Cohen, A. D., & Cavalcanti, M. C. (1990). Feedback on compositions: Teacher and student verbal reports. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Second language writing: Research insights for the classroom (pp. 155-177). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Diab, R. L. (2005). Teachers' and students' beliefs about responding to ESL writing: A case study. TESL Canada Journal, 23, 28-43. Hedgcock, J., & Lefkowitz, N. (1994). Feedback on feedback: Assessing learning receptivity to teacher response in L2 composing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 3, 141-163. Leki, I. (1991). The preferences of ESL students for error correction in college level writing classes. Foreign Language Annals, 24, 203-218. Nunan, D. (1987). Communicative language teaching: The learner’s view. In K. D. Bikram (Ed.), Communication and learning in the classroom community, (pp. 176-190). Singapore: SEAMEO Regional Language Centre. Nunan, D. (1995). Closing the gap between learning and instruction. TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 133-158. Schulz, R. A. (2001). Cultural differences in student and teacher perceptions concerning the role of grammar instruction and corrective feedback: USA-Columbia. Modern Language Journal, 85,244-258.



A Self-assessment Checklist for Undergraduate Students’ Argumentative Writing

Vahid Nimehchisalem (Corresponding author)

English Language Department, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya Email: [email protected]

David Yoong Soon Chye

English Language Department, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya

Sheena Kaur A/P Jaswant Singh English Language Department, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya

Siti Zaidah Zainuddin


Sara Norouzi English Language Department, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya

Sheren Khalid



Abstract

With a growing emphasis on students’ ability to assess their own written works in teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) writing courses, self-assessment checklists are today regarded as useful tools. These checklists can help learners diagnose their own weaknesses and improve their writing performance. This necessitates development of checklists that guide the learners in assessing their own writing. In this study, a self-assessment checklist was developed for undergraduate students in an ESL context to help them with their argumentative essays. This paper presents the related literature and theories, based on which the checklist was developed. The checklist is described and its potential theoretical and practical implications in ESL writing classes are discussed. Further research is necessary to refine the checklist through focus group studies with lecturers and students.

Keywords: English as a second language writing, self-assessment, checklists, argumentative writing

1. Introduction

Despite their importance, few self-assessment checklists are available to help university undergraduate students specifically in writing argumentative essays. The existing self-assessment checklists designed for ESL argumentative writing do not seem to be able to help these students improve their argumentative writing skills. One of the few self-assessment checklists tested for their effectiveness is presented by Honsa (2013). The checklist was generic and was accompanied by a guidance sheet. Although Honsa (2013) reports that the checklist helped the participants in the experimental group gain higher scores, she fails to mention the statistical significance of this difference. Moreover, nothing is mentioned on the validation procedure of this checklist which is also the case for most of the checklists available in the literature. Most of these checklists are generic and thus are not sensitive to the features that are specific to argumentative writing. Additionally, most checklists have not been developed on sound theoretical frameworks which can undermine their construct validity. For example, as it is the case with Honsa’s (2013) checklist, it was adapted from a textbook by Oshima and Hogue (1997), who do not provide any theoretical framework based on which they selected its sub-constructs.

It has been discovered that learners’ awareness of specific schematic structures helps them improve in their writing (Beck & Jeffry, 2007). This way, they become familiar with the different parts of a piece of writing, the way these parts are meaningfully interrelated, and the way they can be organized to fulfill a certain purpose. Research has revealed a change in the genre of writing will lead to variations in schematic structure (Lock & Lockhart, 1999). As a result several genre-specific rating scales (e.g., Connor & Lauer, 1988; Glasswell et al., 2001; Wong, 1989) have been developed. However, to reiterate the aforementioned point, what is lacking in the literature is genre-specific self-assessment checklists, which help students evaluate and improve their own writing.

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 66 This study explores a number of preliminaries in developing a self-assessment checklist prototype for undergraduate ESL students in order to aid them in assessing their own argumentative essays. It highlights some important variables that characterize effective self-assessment checklists, based on theories of language competence, language assessment, and argumentation.

2. Self-Assessment Writing Checklists

There are several writing self-assessment checklists discussed in this section. In the self-assessment checklist developed by the Council of Europe (2001), writing ability is classified into a 6-level scale of beginner (A1), elementary (A2), intermediate (B1), upper-intermediate (B2), advanced (C1), and proficiency (C2) with a list of descriptors for each level. For example based on this checklist, a competent learner who has mastery over language at the last level (C2) can write clearly and effectively about everything ranging from letters and reports to articles, reviews, and summaries.

There are also self-assessment checklists which have been developed based on the available rating scales. Some researchers have used Jacobs et al.’s (1981) ESL Composition Profile to develop their own self-assessment checklists. The rubrics of this rating scale have been used by White and McGovern (1994) as well as Al-Hazmi and Scholfield (2007) to develop checklists which focus on different writing domains related to both form (grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, and text structure) and meaning (purpose, content, cohesion and response to readers, and main idea). These researchers used the ESL Composition Profile rubrics to provide explicit descriptions of these writing features to enable the learners in their studies to assess their own writing. With regard to content, learners were encouraged to evaluate their writings by asking questions on the relevance and adequacy of information, sufficient examples or evidence for supporting the main ideas, the existence of any gap in the information, and the balance in the amount of information provided for each section.

Scholars have emphasized the importance of assessing writing based on genre-specific instruments (Matsuda, 2003, Strong, 1999; Beck & Jeffry, 2007; Jones, 1996; Hyland, 2003). Such instruments focus on specific genres and are sensitive to variations in the content and organizational structure of different modes of writing. For example, in a checklist developed by Paulus (1999) based on Faigley and Witte’s (1981) taxonomy of revisions, the learners are encouraged to assess their writings based on domains such as development of ideas, word choice, effective reasoning, introduction, and conclusion.

Scholars like Flower et al. (1986) have emphasized the processes that take place in the minds of the students while using writing checklists. They believe that learners should be encouraged to revise and explain rather than merely evaluating their written works. Accordingly, Demirel and Enginarlar (2007) as well as Paulus (1999) developed self-assessment checklists prompting students to read what they have written, provide a list of the ideas discussed in each paragraph, evaluate the essay unity, and finally explain the possible ways to revise and improve their papers. It is claimed that these checklists can help students become actively involved in the process of analyzing and evaluating the quality of their writing (Demirel & Enginarlar, 2007). However, one problem with such checklists is that they are limited only to the revision phase of writing. A comprehensive checklist should include all the stages of writing such as generating and organizing ideas and planning arguments besides revising or editing the written work.

One may also common come across with self-assessment checklists which have been developed by faculty members to help students assess their writing. The University of Technology Sydney’s Faculty of Law (2013) for instance provides a written guide for law students. The checklist includes style (using plain English), drafting (putting ideas in logical order), coherent and cohesion markers, word choice, grammatical definitions, punctuation, as well as reference to statements of law and numbering. However, this checklist has a number of limitations. It lacks a theoretical background, is lengthy, is accompanied by a list of definitions for grammatical terms (and some guidelines that do not go beyond the basic writing skills), and does not specifically focus on argumentative writing skills. As another example, the UCLA School of Law’s (n.d.) writing checklist provides a short list of dos and don’ts, such as word use, paragraphing, style, and grammatical accuracy. However, this checklist cannot be regarded as a self-standing guide for helping students with their argumentative writing since it only partially presents some of the features of a good argumentative essay. The checklist lacks comprehensiveness which is due to the fact that it was not developed based on a theoretical framework and which undermines its construct validity.

The next section provides a discussion of a theoretical framework that formulates the development of a genre-specific self-assessment checklist.

3. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework of this study is based on the Pyramid of Argumentation (Nimehchisalem, 2010) and the Process Approach, which are described in the following sub-sections.

3.1 Pyramid of Argumentation

The Pyramid of Argumentation adapts and integrates the elements of communicative language competence and argumentation. The Theory of Communicative Language Ability (Bachman, 1990), Taxonomy of Components of Language Competence (Bachman, 1990), the Theory of Classical Rhetoric (Kinneavy, 1971), and Model of Argument (Toulmin, 2003) are slightly modified and combined in the form of a pyramid to be discussed in the following sections.

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 67 3.1.1 Theory of Communicative Language Ability (Bachman, 1990)

The Communicative Language Ability (CLA) includes the ‘world knowledge’ ‘language competence’, ‘strategic competence’, ‘psychophysiological mechanisms’ (discarded in the Pyramid of Argumentation), and ‘context of situation’ (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Components of Communicative Language Ability (Adapted from Bachman, 1990)

Based on Bachman’s CLA theory, besides students’ language competence their world or topical knowledge is also considered in assessing their writing. Equally important in writing assessment is strategic competence. According to Bachman and Palmer (1996, pp. 71-75) goal setting, planning, and assessment comprise the three areas of metacognitive strategy use where strategic competence can work. Strategic competence can help student writers ‘set goals’ based on what they intend to do with the language. They also use strategic competence to ‘assess’ their available topical and language knowledge resources in order to predict whether they can fulfill the task. Based on this assessment, they identify the most suitable resource that can help them complete the task. Additionally, ‘planning’ assists writers to decide on how to select the appropriate concepts from their existing language and world resources. Planning may involve outlining one’s response to the task. The final element of the CLA theory is the context of situation. In order to create an appropriate and effective argument, students should integrate their world and language knowledge in accordance with the context in which that communication takes place. Attention to the context will help them use a suitable style. 3.1.2 Taxonomy of Components of Language Competence (Bachman, 1990) The Taxonomy of Language Competence Components is composed of ‘organizational’ and ‘pragmatic’ competencies (Bachman, 1990). While organizational competence deals with the way in which sentences and text are organized, pragmatic competence helps language users relate sentences and texts “to the communicative goals of the language user and to the features of language use setting” (Bachman & Palmer, 1996, p. 68). Figure 2 presents an adapted version of the taxonomy.

Figure 2. Components of Language Competence (Adapted from Bachman, 1990) Key) V: vocabulary S: Syntax Mo: Morphology G: Graphology C: Cohesion RO: Rhetorical Organization Id: Ideational Ma: Manipulative H: Heuristic Im: Imaginative D: Dialect N: Naturalness R: Register F: Figures of speech

Language knowledge

Organizational knowledge

Pragmatic knowledge

Grammatical knowledge

Sociolinguistic knowledge

Functional knowledge

Textual knowledge

V

S

G

MO

C RO

Id

H Im

Ma

D

R

F

N

Strategic Competence

Language Competence

Context of Situation

World Knowledge

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 68 The two components of organizational knowledge are grammatical and textual knowledge that help students form and understand sentences. Grammatical knowledge is classified into vocabulary, syntax, morphology, and graphology. Textual knowledge, on the other hand, helps students form and understand texts that are longer than two sentences. The two components of textual knowledge are cohesion (explicit relationships among sentences), and rhetorical organization (organizational structure of written texts).

The two components of pragmatic knowledge include functional and sociolinguistic knowledge. Functional knowledge enables students to interpret the intended meanings. It allows them to i) share ideas and feelings (ideational function), ii) affect the world around (manipulative function), iii) learn and extend their knowledge (heuristic function), and iv) use language imaginatively for creative and aesthetic purposes (imaginative function). Finally, sociolinguistic knowledge enables students to make appropriate use of language regarding the social context. Dialects, registers, idioms, cultural references, as well as figures of speech can be encoded or decoded with the help of this knowledge.

3.1.3 Theory of Classical Rhetoric (Kinneavy, 1971)

Kinneavy (1971) reintroduced argumentation following Greek philosophers like Aristotle. The Theory of Classical Rhetoric includes ethos (ethical appeal), logos (logical appeal, replaced by Toulmin’s Model of Argument in the Pyramid of Argumentation), pathos (emotional appeals, discarded in the Pyramid of Argumentation), rhetorical situation, rhetorical style, as well as arrangement (Kinneavy, 1971). The theory is slightly modified and presented in this section (Figure 3).

Figure 3. The Classical Rhetoric with slight modifications (adapted from Kinneavy, 1971)

Ethical appeal, also known as ethos or appeal to character helps writers create a good impression in their readers through good sense (by demonstrating astuteness and resourcefulness), good morals (by showing integrity), and good will (by showing good intentions). According to Crowley and Hawhee (2004), rhetorical situation (kairos) is “the context of a rhetorical act; minimally made up of a rhetor, an issue, and an audience” (p. 437). The major elements of a rhetorical situation include occasion, purpose, and audience (Reid, 1993). A piece of language that sounds suitable for a particular rhetorical situation can be completely inappropriate for another. Arrangement was commonly regarded to have six elements, including “exordium, narration, division, proof, refutation and peroration” (Lanham, 1991, p. 171). Exordium is the introduction, which is a general statement related to the topic and attracts readers’ attention. Narration, or the thesis statement, is where one states one’s position in relation to the topic. Division consists of a brief list of the ideas that one plans to mention in one’s arguments. Proof, or confirmation, comes in the body paragraphs providing support for one’s position. Refutation involves anticipating and acknowledging the possible objections and refuting them by providing reasons. Peroration, commonly referred to as conclusion, is the recap of the mentioned arguments. The style of an argument can be determined by its topic, vocabulary, intended effect on the reader, and syntax (Lanham, 1991). The more serious a topic is, the more formal the style should be. Following ancient rhetoricians, Crowley (1994) presents correctness, clarity, appropriateness, and ornament as the four features of style. Using language which is consistent with the conventional grammar as well as conventions of spelling and punctuation is known as correctness. As one of the most crucial features of English language writing style, clarity means that the intended meaning is communicated transparently and lucidly. For Greek masters out-dated, technical, and new or

Ethos: Ethical Appeal

Logos: Logical Appeal

Rhetorical Situation

Arrangement & Style

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 69 colloquial words could diminish clarity, but this would depend on the rhetorical situation. When the reader is expected to have expert knowledge about the topic, technical words can contribute to clarity. Appropriateness necessitates the writer’s sensitivity to the rhetorical situation (occasion, purpose, and audience). For example, a police report would require a more formal style than a personal letter. Finally, ornament is creative and impressive use of language by using figurative language like metaphors and similes, which if used appropriately, can make the argument more engaging. In classical Greece, students were encouraged to make emotional appeals to contribute to the persuasive power of their arguments. In the related literature, argumentative and persuasive writing are often used interchangeably. However, there are researchers that differentiate the two. For instance, Glenn et al. (2004) state that making appeals to logic and ethics is typical in ‘argumentative’ writing whereas in ‘persuasive’ texts in addition to them frequent appeals are also made to emotions. Connor and Lauer (1988) make a similar distinction between the two. Additionally, Nimehchisalem (2010) reports that in his analysis of 100 argumentative essays, while there were 144 and 112 occurrences of logical and ethical appeals, emotional appeals had a negligibly low frequency (12), which was only 4% of the total number of appeals made in all the samples. For this reason, in the Pyramid of Argumentation, the emotional appeal was discarded. Logical appeal can be achieved through rational thoughts and reasoning. It is divided into three elements of example, topic, and enthymeme (Kinneavy, 1971). In the Pyramid of Argumentation, these elements have been replaced by Toulmin’s model due to its practicality and preciseness. 3.1.4 Model of Argument (Toulmin, 2003) The Model of Argument consists of six interrelated elements of claim, data, warrant, qualifier, backing and rebuttal (Toulmin, 2003). In a good argument, the writer i) makes a claim, ii) provides data to support the claim, iii) may bridge the gap between the claim and data with a warrant, iv) supports the warrant by using backings, v) accounts for the probable objections with the help of rebuttals, and vi) may use qualifiers to indicate the level of certainty of these elements. Thus, the above-mentioned theories were integrated after they were slightly modified to form a three-sided pyramid on four columns (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Pyramid of Argumentation

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 70 As the figure illustrates, the Pyramid of Argumentation includes (i) ethical appeal, (ii) logical appeal represented by Toulmin’s model, (iii) rhetorical situation, as well as (iv) style and arrangement. This integrative framework is also informed by both language and language assessment theories, represented by the four columns: (i) knowledge of language, (ii) strategic competence, (iii) context of situation, and (iv) world knowledge on which the pyramid lies.

3.2 The Process Approach

While the items of the checklist were based on the components of Pyramid of Argumentation, its overall structure was designed following the Process Approach. The Process Approach to ESL writing instruction focuses on the recursive processes occurring in the student writer’s mind while drafting, revising, and editing rather than focusing on the final product (Elbow, 1973; Emig, 1971; Raimes, 1983). The proponents of the Process Approach argue that in their process of self-discovery, second language learners require a teacher’s facilitative role in a positive and co-operative environment (Atkinson, 2003; Matsuda, 2003). Similarly, in the area of assessment, there is an increasing emphasis on continuous assessment of learners’ involvement, effort, and progress. There is an increasing interest in formative assessment which promotes continuous focus on students’ written drafts throughout their writing process (Alderson, 2004). In a classroom that follows this approach, the teacher helps learners discover and reformulate ideas in pre-writing, writing and post-writing, by encouraging the students to express themselves freely (Flower & Hayes, 1984; Raimes, 1991). In so doing, the teacher can gradually reduce their role and can motivate learners to write as much as possible (Hyland, 2003; Matsuda, 2003).

4. The Self-Assessment Checklist for ESL Argumentative Writing

Research indicates that among three types of teacher commentary, imperative comments result in more revisions in student drafts (Sugita, 2006). For this reason, the imperative mode was used to word the items of the prototype checklist (the full checklist is shown in Appendix A). The checklist is divided into three main sections, namely Before Writing (with 7 items), While Writing (with 4 items), and After Writing (with 9 items). Next to each item, students are given three choices: they may check the item ‘done’, ‘pending’ or ‘not applicable’. As the task may not sometimes allow students to follow some of the items in the checklist, the choice ‘not applicable’ makes it more flexible by letting them disregard any of the items that they may find irrelevant. The checklist is followed by an extended guide, which gives further details for each item (Appendix B). The extended guide provides the rationale behind each item. Additionally, it uses examples to explain how to follow each item.

The first section of the checklist, Before Writing, emphasizes the fact that good writing is the result of good reading. The section also encourages students to list up ideas and plan before they actually start writing. Students also learn that they should consider different aspects of the issue under discussion. Finally, they are also instructed to be selective with the arguments that they choose to discuss. The next section, While Writing, is a step-by-step guide helping students write an argumentative piece. A feature of this section is that it encourages the students to write more fluently by starting with the body paragraphs. Delaying writing the introduction until one has written the body paragraphs helps students to save time and avoid writers’ block. The section also emphasizes the importance of originality of the students’ written work and avoidance of plagiarism. Another crucial point that is mentioned in this section is the idea of being relevant to the main idea. Students are finally given instructions on how to organize their writing into separate paragraphs.

The final section, After Writing, is meant to help students analyze, evaluate, and improve their written products. Basically derived from the taxonomy of Components of Language Competence (Bachman, 1990), this section provides a comprehensive guide for students to revise and edit their works. The section focuses on important features of ESL argumentative writing, including task fulfillment, content, organization, vocabulary, style, grammar, and mechanics. A strong point of this section is that it prompts students to seek help from more proficient peers by getting them to peer-review their written works. This highlights the social nature of writing in which individuals write to communicate with a clearly defined picture of their audience in mind, as the potential members of the target discourse community to which they are writing.

It should be noted that dividing the checklist into the aforementioned sections by no means suggests that the writing process is linear. The Process Approach views writing as a recursive process which cannot be simply broken into clear-cut pre-/post-writing stages. A closer look at the checklist shows how students who follow the checklist will have to move back and forth in their written pieces as well as in the checklist itself before they complete their work.

5. Conclusion

The present checklist provides some pointers for students who wish to be more proficient in argumentative writing. Argumentative writing skills are important for university students since they enable them to articulate and document their thoughts well especially at the workplace after they graduate. These skills include i) planning for writing through reading related texts for identifying and analyzing the main arguments and counter-arguments, ii) writing coherently and cohesively by starting with a claim and providing evidence for it, iii) organizing and linking the main ideas clearly in the body paragraphs, iv) summarizing the main arguments followed by a conclusion, and v) checking the final draft for organization, vocabulary use, style, and grammatical accuracy. Such an inventory of writing skill awareness and practice can provide a basis for further studies on the correlation between its items and writing success, the effectiveness of its application in improving the writing skill, and the development of similar checklists for other genres.

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 71 Furthermore, the present checklist is developed based on a theoretical framework in which the Theory of Classical Rhetoric, Toulmin’s Model of Argument and Bachman’s model have been integrated. The checklist supports student writers throughout the process of writing. Unlike most of the available checklists, it avoids merely focusing on students’ written products; rather, it guides students as they start writing argumentative texts from the scratch. Moreover, in addition to helping students analyze and evaluate their written works, it provides recommendations based on which these written works can be improved.

From a broader perspective, one of the major issues for institutes of higher education today worldwide is how employable their graduates are. Communicative and argumentative ability of a job applicant is among the most crucial skills examined by most prospective employers. In order to build a successful career, most university graduates need to be able to examine the ideas for or against a case, provide proof to stand or refute a given position, and convince others to believe in one’s argument and act accordingly. The present checklist is expected to help university students develop this important skill.

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ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 73 Appendix A: Self-assessment Checklist for English as a Second Language Argumentative Writing Based on the theories of language learning and teaching, this checklist has been developed to help you in writing argumentative papers. The checklist items have been divided into three sections, before writing, while writing, and after writing. The checklist is followed by an extended guide, which provides more detailed descriptions and examples on some of the items that you may find hard to understand. In front of the items that you have followed or will consider, check the cell under ‘Done’ or ‘Pending’, respectively. You may decide to ignore some of the items depending on the task by checking the cell under ‘Not applicable’. Before Writing Item Done Pending Not

applicable 1. Review related texts. 2. List a few arguments related to the topic. 3. Keep only the strong arguments that you can write to support. 4. List a few counter-arguments. 5. Keep only the counter-arguments that you can refuse. 6. Consider how different people from different backgrounds would

argue for or against this topic.

7. Based on these items, plan the content of our paragraphs. While Writing Item Done Pending Not

applicable 1. Draft the body paragraphs first. You do not have to start with the

introduction.

2. Write following your plan. 3. Avoid plagiarism. Acknowledging the source if you are quoting. 4. Every idea should be related to the topic. 5. Present the content effectively.

5.1. Make a claim. 5.2. Provide strong evidence to support every claim. 5.3. Elaborate on the link between your claim and evidence if you

anticipate it may not be clear for your reader.

5.4. Back the link between the claim and evidence if you anticipate it may be questioned by the reader.

5.5. Anticipate rebuttals and provide proof for rejecting them. 5.6. Use qualifiers (e.g., certainly) to show the strength of arguments.

6. Organize your ideas. 6.1. Present your arguments and counter-arguments in the body

paragraphs.

6.2. At the beginning of the first paragraph, write a general statement about the topic.

6.3. In the first paragraph, clearly state your position in the argument. Alternatively, you may state your purpose of writing this paper.

6.4. At the end of the first paragraph, you may briefly list the arguments and counter-arguments to be discussed in the paper.

6.5. Present a summary of your arguments and conclude. 6.6. Link your sentences together. 6.7. Link your ideas together logically.

7. Revise the first draft of your paper to improve its content and organization.

After Writing Item Done Pending Not

applicable 1. Fulfill the task.

1.1. Consider the word limit. 1.2. Remove the irrelevant ideas. 1.3. Respond to all parts of the task.

2. Present the content effectively. 3. Check the organization of your paper. 4. Check your use of vocabulary.

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 74 4.1. Using technical words is good but you should avoid using

words that you do not know how to use.

4.2. Avoid repetition by using synonyms and antonyms. 4.3. Avoid incorrect forms. 4.4. Make sure the right words come together. 4.5. It is good to use idioms, but some readers do not like clichés.

5. Check your style. 5.1. Keep your style formal. 5.2. Keep it clear. 5.3. Make it engaging.

6. Check your grammar. 6.1. Use verbs correctly. 6.2. Avoid fragments. 6.3. Use nouns correctly. 6.4. Use adjectives and adverbs correctly. 6.5. Use articles correctly. 6.7. Use prepositions correctly. 6.8. Avoid faulty comparisons. 6.9. Take case of parallel structures. 6.10. Use complex structures correctly.

7. Focus on mechanics. 7.1. Check your spelling. 7.2. Capitalize words like names. 7.3. Use punctuation marks correctly.

8. Request a peer to review your final draft and give you feedback. 9. Proofread the paper considering items 1-7.

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 75 Appendix B: Extended Guide for Using Self-assessment Checklist for ESL Argumentative Writing This extended guide provides more detailed descriptions and examples on the items of the Self-assessment Checklist for ESL Argumentative Writing. Before Writing Item Why & How?

1. Review related texts.

Why? • You may find ideas to be included in your paper. • You may find interesting quotations. • You may pick up a few useful words that you may use in your own paper. How? • Read books, magazine, or reliable internet sources. • Listen to related material.

2. List a few arguments related to the topic.

Why? • Planning your arguments helps you save time. • Thinking about the topic before you start writing helps you write relevantly. How? • Use mind-maps in the form of cluster diagrams to list your ideas in a graphic way. • Outline your ideas.

3. Keep only the strong arguments that you can write to support.

Why? • When you are not convinced that your argument is strong, neither will your reader. • You support an argument in many ways, but be selective because of the time and

word limit. How? • Strong arguments are those in which the relationship between your claim and proof is

evident. • Choose arguments for which you have enough evidence to support.

4. List a few counter-arguments.

Why? • When you are willing to consider different aspects of the issue fairly, you r reader

trusts you more willingly. • Your openness shows your good will which adds to your credibility. • It shows you are a mature arguer and aware that reality is relative. • As someone who is supporting an issue, if you raise some opposite arguments and

then provide proof to reject them, you inoculate those readers who are reluctant to agree with you.

How? • Think of what cons would say to oppose your argument.

5. Keep only the counter-arguments that you can refuse.

Why? • If you draw attention to strong counter-arguments, you will have to spend too much

time and write too many words to provide support to reject them. This will reduce the strength of the main argument.

How? • Think of the ideas that you can present to reject each counter-argument. Keep the

ones for which you are able to think of some ideas. 6. Consider how

different people from different backgrounds would argue for or against this topic.

Why? • This will help you think differently and add to the creativity value of your writing. • This will help you avoid writers’ block. How? • Think of what different people from different geographical, cultural, and professional

backgrounds would say about the topic; e.g., individuals from developed or developing countries may have varying views about it.

7. Based on these items, plan the content of your paragraphs.

Why? • Planning your writing helps you avoid having to remove irrelevant or weak

arguments after you have written them. How? • Outline the selected ideas or number the arguments to be included in your paper.

While Writing Item Why & How? 1. Draft the body

paragraphs first. You do not have to start with the introduction.

Why? • Starting with the introduction may cause writer’s block. • You may waste time by writing ideas that you may have to remove later because you

do not include them in the paper. How?

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 76 Item Why & How?

• Based on your outline, write your body paragraphs first. • Write your introduction based on what you have written in the body of the paper.

2. Avoid plagiarism. Acknowledging the source if you are quoting.

Why? • Attributing others’ ideas or statements to yourself is considered unethical. How? • Use quotation marks and make references to the sources from which you accessed an

idea. 3. Every idea should

be related to the topic.

Why? • Relevance is the most important matter when it comes to argumentative writing. • Irrelevant ideas will mean that you have written to fill the paper rather than fulfilling

the task. How? • Continuously ask yourself whether what you are writing can directly or indirectly be

linked to the topic. • When you anticipate your reader may not be able to see the relevance, you may have

to explicitly show the relevance of some statements to the topic. 4. Organize your

ideas. Why? • When you write, you should be able to create order out of the anarchy of ideas that

you have listed down during brainstorming. How? • Your ideas and arguments should have a logical order. • Each paragraph should present one idea at a time.

There should be a logical link between paragraphs. 4.1. First, you

may make a general statement about the topic.

Why? • This will help you attract the reader’s attention. How? • This general statement is called ‘introduction’ which usually comes at the beginning

of the first paragraph. 4.2. Second,

clearly state your position in the argument. Alternatively, you may state your purpose in writing this paper.

Why? • This will make it easy for your reader to follow your arguments throughout your

paper. How? • This is called ‘thesis statement’. • It comes in the first paragraph after the introduction. • It shows what you really think about the topic. • Some writers may delay explicitly stating their position, which is also acceptable. If

this is your choice, state your purpose instead. 4.3. Third, you

may briefly list the arguments and counter-arguments to be discussed in the paper.

Why? • It outlines your arguments throughout the paper, making it reader-friendly. How? • This is called ‘division’, which comes in the first paragraph after the thesis statement. • Write the division in a telegraphic manner as in a list. • Make sure the items in the list are grammatically parallel; e.g., This paper discusses

three reasons for avoiding smoking, namely medical, social, and economic 4.4. Present your

arguments and counter-arguments in the next few paragraphs.

Why? • Dividing your arguments into separate paragraphs helps your reader follow them

easily. How? • This is called ‘proof’, which constitutes the body paragraphs. • Start drafting the argument that is the easiest for you.

4.5. Present a summary of your arguments and conclude.

Why? • Your conclusion signals to your reader that you are going to end the paper. • This gives your reader a full synopsis of your ideas. How? • In the final paragraph, state the gist of the arguments discussed in the paper and then

conclude. 4.6. Link your

sentences together.

Why? • This helps you reader follow your ideas more easily. How? • This feature is called ‘cohesion’, which means the clauses and sentences are tied well

together. • You may use connectors (e.g., however, therefore, etc.) to do this, but you do not

have to.

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 77 Item Why & How?

• Use connectors correctly. 4.7. Link your

ideas together logically.

Why? • English is a language in which the writer is responsible for clearly communicating the

message with the reader. • This is another way to clearly link the ideas in different paragraphs together and make

it easy for the reader to follow the arguments. How? • This is called ‘coherence’, which means the ideas and arguments should be logically

linked to one another. • You may use transitional signals; e.g., In addition to the sociological reasons,

discussed in the previous section, there are also psychological reasons to avoid smoking.

After Writing Item Why & How? 1. Fulfill the task. Why?

• Even if you write very well but you fail to fulfill the task, your writing will be irrelevant. How?

• Always ask yourself, “What does this task want from me?” 1.1. Consider

the word limit.

Why? • When you write below the word limit, your reader may assume you did not have enough

ideas to write about the task. How?

• Count the number of the words in one line and multiply it by the total number of lines in your paper.

1.2. Remove the irrelevant ideas.

Why? • The ideas that are irrelevant to the task and topic will reduce the coherence of your

writing and therefore its effectiveness. How?

• Remove the statements that are not related or cannot be indirectly linked to the topic. 1.3. Respond to

all parts of the task.

Why? • Some tasks have different parts. If you cover only one and neglect others, you will not

miss the scores assigned for those parts. How?

• While you are reading the task, number its different parts and then distribute your time and energy evenly to respond to each part.

2. Present the content effectively.

Why? • It is always important to give yourself one more chance to review the content before you

submit a paper. How?

• Review the content based on the items in section ‘While Writing’ 4. • You can review your paper considering this and the next item (organization) together to

save time. 3. Check the

organization of your paper.

Why? • How you organize your arguments is sometimes as important as the arguments

themselves. How?

• See section ‘While Writing’ 5. 4. Check your

use of vocabulary.

Why? • Words are the building blocks of any language, so it is important to choose the correct

words in your writing. How? • Use a dictionary that:

1. is recent; 2. provides the second, third, and other meanings of words accurately; 3. labels ‘technical’ or ‘formal’ words; and 4. gives examples that show how you can use the word in a sentence.

• You can use dictionaries available online like www.dictionary.reference.com 4.1. Using

technical words is good but avoid using words

Why? • Using technical words shows your reader that you have expertise knowledge in the area. • However, when you fail to use technical words accurately, you introduce yourself only

as an individual with insufficient expertise knowledge. How?

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 78 Item Why & How?

that you do not know how to use.

• See how experts in the area use the technical words in their sentences. • Check with a reliable dictionary or reference before you finalize your draft.

4.2. Avoid repetition by using synonyms and antonyms.

Why? • Sometimes it is OK to repeat ideas in other words to emphasize their importance, but

repeating the same words and/or expressions all over the paper will show your reader that you have a limited vocabulary range.

• Repetition also reduces the ability of your paper to engage the reader. How? • Paraphrase the ideas that you choose to repeat. • If you have to repeat a word, you may decide to write its synonym or antonym. You may

also use online sources like www.thesaurus.com. • You may decide to change an expression into a sentence.

4.3. Avoid incorrect forms.

Why? • Using correct forms of words shows your reader that you are a highly proficient user of

the language. • Incorrect word forms will make your reader assume that you are not an accurate person

which will reduce persuasive power of your paper. How?

• Check with a reliable dictionary. (e.g.; Her father is a cook NOT ‘cooker’; Give someone advice NOT ‘advise’).

• You can Google for “advise or advice”. Remember to use quotation marks, “”. This will direct you to useful links like www.translegal.com/common-mistakes/advise-vs-advice.

• Some commonly problematic words include make and do (e.g., make an effort, do one’s best); like, alike, and unlike (e.g., a like manner, to be alike, unlike conventional methods); other, another, and others (e.g., another issue, other issues, disagreeing with others).

4.4. Make sure the right words come together.

Why? • Just like some people, some words also do not sit together. • Putting the wrong words together will blur or may change the meaning. How?

• Check with a reliable dictionary. (e.g., make [not ‘do’] a mistake). • You can Google for “make or do a mistake”. Remember to use quotation marks, “”.

This will direct you to useful pages like www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/collocations-learn-correct-english

4.5. Using idioms is good, but some readers do not like clichés.

Why? • Idioms (e.g., killing two birds with one stone) and proverbs (e.g., Two heads are better

than one) are powerful persuasive tools. • Using idioms that are over-used (e.g., Haste makes waste) or are informal (e.g., You

shouldn’t bite off more than you can chew; That’s the way the cookie crumbles) may negatively affect your style.

How? • Make sure the idiom is appropriate for the context of your argument. • Make sure the idiom is not labelled ‘derogatory’ or ‘informal’ in a reliable dictionary.

5. Check your style.

Why? • It is possible to write the same argument in a way that it bores the reader. A good style

helps you engage your reader. • Using the right style also helps you give your own unique voice to your writing. How? • Your style should be consistent. For example, avoid mixing formal and informal styles

unless you do it with a special purpose. • Your style should be adequate to the context and reader. • Clarity is the most important matter when it comes to style. Write clearly.

5.1. Keep your style formal.

Why? • Formal style is the most appropriate style for arguments. • It is better to be unbiased and not personal in arguments. How? • Contractions are used in colloquial discourse. Avoid contractions (e.g., isn’t); rather, use

full forms (e.g., is not). • Using pronouns, like you and I, makes your writing informal and personal. • Be impersonal (e.g., ‘It is argued that’; rather than, ‘In my opinion’; OR ‘One may

argue’ rather than, ‘You may argue’.

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 79 Item Why & How? 5.2. Keep it clear. Why?

• English is a writer responsible language; that is, writers are responsible for making sure that the reader understands their text.

How? • As far as possible, make it simple for the reader to understand your argument. • If you anticipate that your reader cannot link your ideas together, clarify the link between

them explicitly. • Avoid sentences that are too long. • Avoiding sentences with disorganized forms and thus confusing meanings).

5.3. Make it engaging.

Why? • The more engaging a text is, the more effective it will be since the reader will read it

more attentively. How? • Avoid redundancies. • Relate your arguments to interesting examples, proverbs, anecdotes, or metaphors. • Be terse: use fewer words to communicate more ideas. Less is more.

6. Check your grammar.

Why? • Correct use of grammar is one of the first things that readers of academic works consider. How? • You can use helpful online sources like www.grammarly.com. • You can also check with OWL Purdue Online Writing Lab at

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/ and more specifically at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/1/.

• Check with a recent grammar book like Swan, M. (2005). Practical English usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

6.1. Use verbs correctly.

• Focus on the tenses and ensure they are consistent with the time expressions used. (e.g., Sociologists have debated the issue for centuries).

• Verbs should agree with their subjects (e.g., The number of TV addicts is increasing). • Use passive and active verbs correctly (e.g., The issue has been debated).

6.2. Avoid fragments.

• Each sentence must have a subject and a verb.

6.3. Use nouns correctly.

• Use possessive nouns correctly (e.g., students’ attention). • Use plural/singular noun correctly (e.g., several psychologists). • Use countable and uncountable nouns correctly (e.g., much time; many hours). • Be careful with irregular plural nouns (e.g., man, men; crisis, crises; criterion, criteria;

phenomenon, phenomena). • Distinguish the person from the thing (e.g., poet, poem; sculptor, sculpture; actor,

acting). • Nouns must agree with their pronouns (e.g., Students know what they are doing).

6.4. Use adjectives and adverbs correctly.

• Adjectives describe nouns (e.g., important issues). • Adverbs describe verbs or adjectives (e.g., heatedly debated). • Position adjectives and adverbs correctly (e.g., opposing views; selected carefully). • Be careful with -ly adjectives (e.g., costly, friendly, daily, lonely, northerly). • Use -ed and -ing adjectives correctly (e.g., interesting program; interested audience). • Be careful with predicate adjectives (e.g., lone child; The child was alone).

6.5. Use articles correctly.

• Singular nouns must come with articles (e.g., the issue, an issue). • Use a or an correctly (e.g., a subject; an issue). • Use the with specific ideas and a or an with general ideas (e.g., the first day of May, a

day; the Pacific Ocean; an ocean). 6.7. Use

prepositions correctly.

• Use the correct proposition (e.g., failure resulting in a tragedy; consult with an attorney). • You may have missed a proposition. Add missing propositions (e.g., deal with a

problem). 6.8. Avoid faulty

comparisons. • Use the correct form of comparatives/superlatives (e.g., good, better, best; bad, worse,

worst; more/less, most/ least significant). • Compare two equal things (e.g., Problems of the present century are more profound than

those of the twentieth century). • Compare two parallel structures (e.g., Trying to solve the problem is more important than

finding a solution for it. • Use superlatives for one of the many cases, which is outstanding (e.g., It is the most

significant issue of all times/in human history/that has been experienced in human history).

6.9. Take case of parallel

• Use parallel forms before and after and/but/or (e.g., One must be sincere in what one says and what one does./ They did so not because they wished to but because they had

ALLS 5(1):65-80, 2014 80 Item Why & How?

structures. to./ The problem had to be solved by communicating or by fighting). • Use parallel forms with both…and/either…or/neither…nor/not only…but also (e.g., both

a practical and a clever solution, either at the end or in the middle of the process). 6.10. Use

complex structures correctly.

• Pay special attention to adjective clauses (e.g. Travelling is a hobby that teaches great lessons.)

• Take care of noun clauses used as subjects (e.g. What really hurts is his ignorance.) • Focus on reduced sentences (e.g. Having entered the room, she turned on the light./The

lamp, one of Edison’s best known inventions, changed the face of the world.) • Use inverted sentences correctly (e.g. Little is known about mysteries of the outer space;

Were one interested, one could try it). 7. Focus on

mechanics. Why? • Correct use of mechanics in your writing will make it more formal and clear. How? • Make sure you spell-check. • Some words need to be capitalized. • Use punctuation marks correctly.

7.1. Check your spelling.

• Use a good dictionary for checking the spelling of words you are unsure of. • Make sure you use consistent use of British or American spelling.

7.2. Capitalize words like names.

• Proper nouns should be capitalized (e.g., Malaysia, the Indian Ocean). • The initial letters of every word coming at the beginning of every sentence must be

capitalized (e.g., The issue if open to debate). 7.3. Use

punctuation marks correctly.

• Separate sentences using full-stops (e.g., The issue is multi-faceted). • Use commas to signal appositives (e.g., Cancer, the most dreaded disease of all times, is

caused by it). • Commas come before and, or, so, but, yet (e.g., The paper concludes thus, but further

study is required to shed light on all aspects of the issue). • Commas are used when dependent clauses come at the beginning of a sentence (e.g.,

Before one decides, one must think). • Use a semicolon before and a comma after adverb transitions like finally, as a result,

therefore, however, in contrast, however (e.g., Creativity must be the essence of education; therefore, teachers must seek to nurture creativity in their students).

• For more punctuation rules visit useful online sources like www.grammarbook.com/english_rules.asp.

8. Request a peer to review your final draft and give you feedback.

Why? • Usually instructors will be too busy to read your work thoroughly. How? • Find a partner who is more proficient in English than you. • Follow your peer’s comments carefully to revise your work. • Note that you cannot expect your work completely error-free after the peer-review.

9. Proofread the paper considering items 1-7.

Why? • It is always good to have one last look at your work before you submit. • This will help you avoid typos. How? • Make sure your sentences are structured correctly. • Your sentences must make sense. • There must be a relationship between each sentence and the sentences preceding or

following it. • Accurate language must be used all over the paper.



The Effect of Self, Peer and Teacher Correction on the Pronunciation Improvement of Iranian EFL Learners

Saeideh Ahangari

Department of English, College of Farsi Literature and Foreign Languages, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.81 Received: 02/01/2014 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.81 Accepted: 28/02/2014 Abstract The concept of self correction and peer correction in foreign language teaching has been an important consideration in the past decades due to the increased attention to learner centered curricula. The researchers have concluded that active engagement happens when the students have to think and correct themselves. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of teacher, self and peer correction on the pronunciation improvement of Iranian EFL learners in oral productions. To do this, 45 participants were selected from among 60 English language learning students by assigning a PET test and they were divided into three groups. Some picture series were given to the participants to make and then tell a story based on the scripts. In the self correction group every participant had to correct her pronunciation errors individually, in the peer correction group the participants in pairs corrected each others’ pronunciation errors and for the third group their errors were corrected by the teacher. This process continued for 15 sessions. A pre-test and post-test were administered. The results showed that the pronunciation of the self correction group improved more than the other two groups and peer correction group outperformed the teacher correction group. Keywords: pronunciation, self correction, peer correction, teacher correction 1. Introduction A conceptual shift which has occurred in recent times in higher education has been from a perspective which focused on the teacher, to a perspective in which s tudent invo lvement i s more centra l (Boud ,1995) .The recent literature on language learning from constructivist perspective has indicated that knowledge is not attained but constructed (von Glasersfeld 1989, cited in Kim 2005) by learners, which implies that different learners construct their own meanings. The concept of self-correction and peer correction in foreign language teaching and learning has been an important consideration in the past decades. This practice is supported by both pedagogic and other findings. Lyster and Ranta(1997) in an inspection conclude that student-generated repairs and editing are important factors in language learning because they indicate active engagement in the learning process. This active engagement happens when there is a negotiation of form, or when the students have to think and correct themselves. Humanistic psychology and cognitive psychology both attest the significance of meaningful learning, that is, a learning experience in which the learner is made emotionally interested and cognitively engaged. With this realization, effort was made, in language pedagogy, to search for methodological proposals that would engage the learners emotionally and promote meaningful learning. The use of tasks in language teaching was introduced as such a proposal in which, according to Nunan (1989, cited in Ellis, 2003), represents the transformation of ideas from the linguistic knowledge or the skills to be mastered to what learners need to do in order to learn, from the outcomes of instruction towards the processes of learning. Task based activities have been defined comprehensively by Willis (2003). In his idea a task is a work plan and makes a plan to develop learning and also involves a primary focus on meaning. It seeks to develop L2 proficiency through L2 proficiency. Tasks involve real world process of language use and may require learners to engage in a language activity such as that found in a real world and can involve any one of language skills. With the emergence of TBLT, learning activities were no longer described merely in terms of inventories of language items, but also, and most importantly, in terms of tasks that could be accomplished during the class time to engage learners in some meaningful activities. Regarding the impact of self-correction and peer correction on learning, our challenge has been to investigate the role of self-correction and peer-correction in the task-based context in promoting EFL (English as Foreign Language) learners’ pronunciation. Yet, it seems pertinent that prior to discussing teacher, self- and peer correction, a brief look be taken at some theories about speech production and pronunciation. 2. Review of related Literature: Pronunciation teaching is an essential part of any language teaching process. On the one hand, confidence with pronunciation allows learners to interact with native speakers that is so essential for all aspects of their linguistic development. On the other hand, poor pronunciation can mask otherwise good language skills condemning learners to

ALLS 5(1):81-88, 2014 82 less than their deserved social, academic and work advancement. People from different countries of the world are now working and living in a global village. “Labor mobility and the existence of internationally employment opportunities have heightened the need to communicate and to be understood” (Mitra, Tooley, Inamdar, & Dixon, 2003, p.2). Good pronunciation is closely linked with clear oral communication: therefore, it is advisable to place students in a meaningful and contextual situation, and involve them in performing of the real-like tasks. Recently as the curricula of English language teaching has moved towards communicative competence and task-based language teaching, a new urgency for the teaching of pronunciation has arisen (Celce-Murcia, 1987), because poor pronunciation will causes problems in oral communication, no matter how well a speaker’s control of vocabulary or grammar might be. Approaches to second language teaching have traditionally attributed a primary role to feedback, whether generated by learner, a peer, a computer, or a teacher and whether occurring through error correction, self editing, peer feedback, or conferencing (Hylland &Hylland, 2006). The importance of feedback emerged with the development of learner centered approaches to writing instruction in North American L1 composition classes during the 1970s. The “process approach” gave greater attention to support writers through multiple drafts by providing feedback and suggesting revisions during the process of writing itself, rather than at the end of it. Feedback refers to the response that learners receive regarding the language they produce (VanPatten and Benati, 2010). Feedback is a natural part of language that we use to clarify the meaning of what we say, and to help ourselves and others understand what we mean, by asking questions (Ferm Lange, 2009). The form feedback takes is extended beyond the teacher’s marginal notes to include oral interaction involving the teacher or the students themselves. The focus moves from a concern with mechanical accuracy and control of language to a greater emphasis on the development and discovery of meaning through the experience of speech production and reproduction. Feedback comes to be viewed as having a powerful potential, with the potentiality for “a revision of cognition itself that stems from response” (Freedman, 1985, p.6). Feed back and correction have mainly been investigated in the writing classes. For example, according to Hyland and Hyland (2006) providing feedback to students has come to be recognized as one of the ESL writing teacher’s most important tasks. It can be in the form of “ written commentary, error correction, teacher-student conferencing, or peer discussion” (p.xv). It offers the kind of individualized attention that is otherwise rarely possible under normal classroom conditions. Feedback as viewed by Magno and Amarles (2011) necessitates the existence of gaps between what has been learned and the target competence of the learners, and the efforts undertaken to bridge these gaps. The role of feedback and correction; however, has not been properly touched in the area of speech production and pronunciation improvement of foreign language learners. 2.1 Teacher Correction Regardless of pedagogical approach (traditional product-based, process-oriented, or genre-based), the response of teachers to student performance has been examined in a variety of ways. Depending on the type of the feedback, teacher feedback has been found sometimes to help, to hinder, and occasionally to have no effect on students’ learning and revising (Silva & Brice, 2004). Kazuya (2011), for example, investigated the acquisitional value of form-focused instruction (FFI) with and without corrective feedback (CF) on 65 Japanese EFL learners’ pronunciation development. The results showed that: F3(third formant) values of the FFI + CF group significantly declined after receiving corrective feedback, not only at a controlled-speech level but also at a spontaneous-speech level, regardless of following vowel contexts. Kazuya (2013) in another study investigated the impact of form-focused instruction on L2 pronunciation development. The results of the ANOVAs showed that (a) the FFI-only group demonstrated moderate improvement with medium effects and (b) the FFI+EI (explicit information) group not only showed considerable improvement with large effects but also generalized the instructional gains to unfamiliar lexical contexts beyond the instructional materials. Hedgcock (2005) suggested that the effects of teacher feedback depend on several factors such as learners’ proficiency levels, their educational needs and expectations, curricular and institutional constraints, the nature of tasks, the focus of teacher commentary, and learner training. Surveys of students’ feedback preferences generally indicate that ESL students greatly value teacher feedback and consistently rate it more highly than alternative forms such as peer and oral feedback (Ferris 1995; Hyland & Hyland, 2006). Teacher correction will be quicker, more effective and accurate. Despite students’ preferences of teacher corrective feedback, its contribution to students’ language improvement is still controversial. It may fail to encourage students’ independence and they may feel embarrassed when corrected by the teacher. So some researches propose other types of corrective feedback, such as self correction and peer correction. 2.2 Peer Correction In the last two decades, an alternative to teacher corrective feedback has appeared to be put into practice by L2 teachers and has closely been investigated by second language acquisition researchers under the general rubric of peer review. From a socio-cognitive perspective, peer review can be seen as a formative developmental process that gives learners the opportunities to discuss their productions and discover theirs’ interpretations of them (Hyland & Hyland, 2006). According toMcDowell (1995), the main strengths of peer feedback are that (1) there is a development of evaluative and critical abilities, (2) there are opportunities for skill development, (3) knowledge is more integrated and (4) students collaborate, are motivated and are satisfied. It is assumed that knowing the criteria of a product and observing the work of peers, leads to a higher understanding of the quality of one’s own work (Falchikov, 1995; Freeman, 1995).Peer correction is seen as a way of giving more control to students since it allows them to make active decisions about

ALLS 5(1):81-88, 2014 83 whether or not to use their peers’ comments as opposed to a passive reliance on teachers’ feedback ( Mendonca & Johnson, 1994 ; Mittan, 1989).Freedman and Sperling (1985) and Mittan (1989) consider that peer response can be more authentic and honest than teacher response. It encourages the atmosphere of cooperation and makesthe other students stay involved in the lesson. Some research projects such as (Hagege, 1996) have suggested that correction is even more efficient when it is done with the help of peers. Yurick and collegues (2006), for example, conducted three experimental studies to investigate the impact of peer-mediated oral RRS on students’ fluency and pronunciation. Their findings showed improvement in the fluency and pronunciation of the students due to peer mediation. Tost (2013) also evaluated the feasibility and impact of partner reading out aloud to improve English pronunciation, fluency and expression. Her findings indicated that peer- mediated repeated oral reading interventions done by students’ cooperation was effective in improving their levels of reading pronunciation and fluency. Some others like Chaudron (1984) has found the influence of teacher and peer feedback on writing improvement to be about the same, while,other researchers such as Zhang (1985) found teacher feedback as more effective than peer feedback in the improvement of grammatical errors. Peer feedback has been suggested to suffer from certain problems including: firstly, “student editors are more likely to address surface errors and not the problems of meaning” (Keh, as cited in Hyland & Hyland, 2006); also “the inexperienced students may find it hard to judge the validity of their peers’ comments” (Leki, as cited in Hyland & Hyland, 2006); finally, students might have difficulty identifying problem areas in their peers’ performance and offer them misleading advice” (Horowitz, as cited in Hyland & Hyland, 2006). Therefore, there is still a need for further investigation of the effectiveness of the peer feedback and correction. 2.3 Self Correction In most educational systems today, one of the basic pedagogical principles is that good conditions for learning are best achieved if learners are actively involved in all phases of the educational process, which is maintained by proponents of cognitive and constructive theories of learning ( e.g. Cobb, 1994; Von glasersfed, 1995, cited in Birjandi & Hadid, 2011). Self along with peer correction is also valued in the teaching process. Buchanan (2004) acknowledges that self correction can be a force that pushes students to engage more actively in their own learning process. Shunk(2000, cited in Buchanan) also states that, “ developing self and peer evaluation strategies help students gain control over their learning, ….and allows them to focus more effort in studying those areas where they need more time” (p. 379). Involving the students in correcting of their own errors give them confidence and helps them to be the judges of their own performances. Kavaliauskiene (2003) has stated that learners must have the opportunity for the self-correction of their work individually; however, their work should be previewed by the teachers and their errors should be indicated. Marie Wood (2004) at the University of Kansas found that students enjoyed looking back at their composition and compare their first performance with the second. While enough conceptualization has already been made about teacher feedback, and a good number of experimental studies have been conducted to examine the effect of peer feedback on different aspects of second language learning, there are limited reflection and research studies that have compared the effect these three types of correction on the improvement of EFL learners’ pronunciation sub-skill. The research so far has not been conclusive on the central issue of which type of feedback and correction is an effective means of improving L2 performance. So inspired by the reviewed literature, the researcher intended to investigate the impact of the three types of feedback and correction, i.e. teacher, self and peer on the improvement of Iranian EFL learners’ pronunciation. To do so the researcher raised the following questions: 2.4 Research Questions 1-Does self-correction have any significant impact on the improvement of EFL learners’ pronunciation? 2- Does peer-correction have any significant impact on the improvement of EFL learners’ pronunciation? 3- Are there any differences among three groups (control and two experimental groups) regarding the improvement of their pronunciation? 3. Methodology 3.1 participants The participants were 45 female students who were studying English as a foreign language in a language institute in Tabriz, Iran .The age range of the participants was fifteen to twenty and all of them were pre-intermediate English students. The study was conducted in the first semester of 2012 academic year. Participants were selected from intact classes but they were randomly divided into three groups. The first group was considered as the control group and for this group teacher corrected their errors and other two groups were considered as experimental groups for which peer correction and self correction techniques were provided. The homogeneity of the participants in terms of their L2 language proficiency was assured through Preliminary English test (PET). 3.2 Instrumentation 3.2.1 Preliminary English Test (PET) The Preliminary English Test which was used to examine the participants ' English language proficiency at the beginning of the study is an international examination sanctioning a certain level of English mastery of the English

ALLS 5(1):81-88, 2014 84 language. The preliminary English Test (PET) is a second level Cambridge ESOL exam for the intermediate level learners. 3.2.2 Story telling tasks The participants had to perform a narrative task by telling a story based on a set of pictures taken from Heaton (1975). 3.3 Procedure The study with a quasi-experimental design, started with the administration of proficiency test PET to 60 female students who were studying English at language institute. Forty five students out of sixty who received one standard deviation above and under the mean were selected as the participants of the study. Based on the results, the participants were divided into three groups and ANOVA analysis was used to test homogeneity of the participants .The second step was assigning a pretest: A series of pictures taken from Heaton (1975) were given to students to make and tell a story based on the pictures and the performance of the participants were recorded and then scored. During the treatment period which lasted for a semester all groups performed narrative tasks, but each group received a different type of feedback. In the self correction group, while each participant was performing a task, the teacher used to take notes and write down that participant’s pronunciation errors. After finishing of the task, the teacher was giving her notes to the participant and asked her to find the correct pronunciation of the mentioned words and learn their correct form. In the following session each participant had to tell the same story, but with the correct pronunciation. The second experimental group worked in a team frame which included two participants and they corrected each others’ pronunciations. In this group, while one of the pairs was performing the task, the other pair had to take notes and find her friend’s pronunciation errors. She was also responsible for finding of the correct pronunciation of the mentioned words and sharing them with her pair. For the last group which was considered as the control group the teacher corrected the participants’ pronunciation errors while they were performing the task. After three months the researcher administered a post test. For the post test again a set of pictures was given to the participants, and they had to make and tell a story based on the pictures. The participants’ performances were recorded and scored by two raters and inter rater reliability index was calculated for two sets of scores. For measuring of the participants’ pronunciation, the data coded for the total number of the produced words and it was reflected by calculating error free words per total number of the words. 4. Data Analysis and Results 4.1 Investigating the Homogeneity of the Participants in Three Groups Regarding Their General Proficiency As it has been mentioned before, the participants of this study were selected from among 60 EFL students based on their proficiency scores. Then they were divided into three identical groups. In order to check their homogeneity, a one way ANOVA was run on their proficiency scores. As it is clear from table 1, the mean score of three groups are approximately the same (68.73, 68.27, 66, and 80). But in order to be sure whether there is any significant difference among the mean score of the three groups or not, the data were analyzed through a one-way ANOVA; the results of which are shown in table 2. Table 1. Descriptive statistics for PET test

Groups N Mean Std. Deviation Minimum Maximum

self correction 15 68.73 3.731 63 75 peer correction 15 68.27 4.891 61 75 teacher correction 15 66.80 3.256 62 73 Total 45 67.93 4.014 61 75

Table 2. One-way ANOVA for pet test

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

PET Between Groups 30.533 2 15.267 .945 .397 Within Groups 678.267 42 16.149 Total 708.800 44

As the results of the ANOVA test in table 2 shows, there has not been a significant difference among the three groups regarding their proficiency level (F (2, 42) =0.945, p=0.397).

ALLS 5(1):81-88, 2014 85 4.2 Discussion of Variables’ Scores Dispersion Normality The data obtained from the performance of the participants in the narrative tasks were put into SPSS and one-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test (table 3) was run to test the normality of scores dispersion. Assuming zero shows the normality of the variables dispersion. If significance level be under 0.05, then the zero will be denied and the result of the dispersion normality is not acceptable. Table 3. One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test

Group N Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z

Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed)

Pre-test self correction 15 .510 .957 peer correction 15 .506 .960 teacher correction 15 .635 .814

Post-test self correction 15 1.069 .203 peer correction 15 .703 .706 teacher correction 15 .496 .967

Based on the results of One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test, shown in table 3 the normality of the scores in pre-test and post-test was assured and the following tests were computed for answering the research questions. 4.3. Comparison of the of the pretest and posttest scores for the self-correction group To answer the first research question a paired sample T-test was conducted to see if there is any significant difference in the pronunciation scores of the pretest and posttest for self-correction group. Table 4. Paired Samples T-Test for the self correction group

Group Mean N Std. Deviation

T Df Sig. (2-tailed)

self correction

Pair 1 Pre-test .587 15 0.128 -8.515 14 .000 Post-test .876 15 0.094

As table 4 shows the pronunciation mean score for the self correction group in the posttest is bigger than the pretest and significance level is smaller than 0.05 (t (14) = -8.515, p=0.000), so we can conclude that the pronunciation measurement in the self correction group has shown a significant increase. So the answer to the first question is positive. 4.4 Comparison of the Pretest and Posttestscores for the peer-correction group (Question 2) To answer the second research question a paired sample t-test was used to see if there is any difference in the pronunciation scores of the pretest and post test for the peer correction group, the results of which are shown in table 5. Table 5. Paired Samples T-Test for the peer-correction group

Group Mean N Std. Deviation t df Sig. (2-tailed)

Peer correction

Pair 1 Pre-test .615 15 0.112 -3.757 14 .002 Post-test .736 15 0.066

As it is clear from the table 5, the mean of the pronunciation scores in the posttest (.736) is bigger than pretest (.615) and significance level is smaller than 0.05 (t (14) = -3.757, p= 0.002), So the answer to the second question is positive and we can say that peer correction leads to more improvement in the pronunciation of the participants. 4.5 Comparison of pronunciation scores among three groups in posttest (Question3) Based on the third research question, the researcher wanted to find out if there is any significant difference among the three groups regarding their pronunciation scores in the post-test. To answer this question the researcher conducted a one way ANOVA analysis. Assuming zero shows that there is no difference between two variables. If the significance level be under 0.05 then the zero assuming will be denied. Table 6 shows the descriptive statistics in three groups. The variances equality in the three groups is needed for testing of the means. So this test is done by Levene statistics.

ALLS 5(1):81-88, 2014 86 Table 6. Descriptive & Test of Homogeneity of Variances

Group N Mean Std. Deviation Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.

Post-test self correction 15 .876 .094 2.431 2 42 .100 peer correction 15 .736 .066 teacher correction 15 .623 .110 Total 45 .745 .138

As it is indicated in table 6, the mean score of self-correction group (0.876) is higher than the other groups and the mean score of the peer correction group (0.736) in turn is more than the mean score of the teacher correction group which is 0.623. In order to see whether this difference among the groups is statistically meaningful or not, the researcher conducted a one-way ANOVA test, the results of which are shown in table 7. Table 7. ANOVA test for the comparison of groups

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Post-test Between Groups .481 2 .241 28.360 .000 Within Groups .356 42 .008 Total .837 44

As the results of ANOVA test (F (2,42)=28.36, p= 0.000) in table 7 shows, the difference across the participating groups’ pronunciation measurement reached significance. The values observed for the F and p value indicated that the three groups involved did not perform equally in the narrative task performance, because of the different types of correction they have had for their pronunciations. To statistically identify the location of this difference, a post-hoc Tukey was also run. The results of Tukey HSD analysis are represented in table 8. Table 8. Tukey HSD

(I) Group (J) Group Mean Difference (I-J) Std. Error Sig.

self correction peer correction .139600* .033628 .000 teacher correction .252800* .033628 .000

peer correction teacher correction .113200* .033628 .005

As the results of table 8 indicates the pronunciation mean score of posttest in self-correction group significantly is bigger than peer correction and teacher correction groups. Likewise, the pronunciation means score of the posttest in peer correction group is significantly bigger than the teacher correction (control group). 5. Discussion The results showed that there was a significant difference among the means of the participants of three groups regarding their pronunciation during the narrative task performance. The self correction group had the highest mean in the posttest, while the peer correction group outperformed the control group but had a mean score less than the self correction group. The findings of the present study are consistent with Lyster and Ranta(1997) findings that student repair and correction leads to better language learning. They concluded that active engagement happens when there is a negotiation of form and focus on the form. The noticing hypothesis (Schmidt, 1990) claims that Second language learners could not begin to acquire a language feature until they had become aware of it in the input and also they should notice the grammatical form of their input in order to acquire grammar. In the present study the participants who had corrected their own errors paid more attention to those errors and learned them better than the other group participants. The findings support Buchanan (2004) acknowledgement that self assessment can promote more active engagement with the course than simply sitting back and waiting for a grade. The results are also in line with the statements of Schunk (2000, cited in Buchanan, 2004) who says that developing self evaluation strategies help students gain control over their learning. These findings are also in line with the findings of Wood (2003) at the University of Kansas. She studied the benefits of self-correction in her own class during two months and concluded that students enjoyed looking back at their compositions and errors provide wonderful opportunities for learning and improving their written language. Yeganehfar

ALLS 5(1):81-88, 2014 87 (2000) also argues that as far as responding to the written errors of Iranian EFL students is concerned, students’ self-correction works much better than teacher correction. Self correction involves the students in the process of language learning, and it renews their confidence if they can correct themselves. It makes their mistakes more memorable and less likely to occur. Students’ self correction also informs teacher about the students’ knowledge, ability and awareness. Hagege (1999) believes that correction is even more efficient when it is done with the help of children’s classmates, even though in the present study the self correction group outperformed the peer correction group. The peer correction group showed more improvement compared to the control group, which received the teacher correction feedback. The better performance of this group as compared to the teacher correction group is in line with Vygotsky’s (1978) theory on language learning, i.e., learning is a cognitive activity which takes place in social interaction. Ganji (2006, cited in Birjandi & Hadidi, 2011) also expresses that peer-correction seems to have a more lasting effect on the learners’ performance, due to the need for more cooperation and activity on the part of the learners, while analyzing and discussing the errors in more details. In this regard the findings of the present study are in agreement with those of Tost (2013) who concluded that peer-mediated repeated oral reading interventions carried out by students’ cooperation was effective in improving of the students’ pronunciation and fluency. References Birjandi, p. & Hadidi, Tamjid, N. (2011). The role of self, teacher and peer assessment in promoting Iranian EFL learners’ writing performance. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 1-21. Buchanan, E.A. (2004). Online assessment in higher education. Strategies to systematically evaluate student learning. In C. Howard, K. Schenk, & R. (EDS.). Distance learning and university effectiveness: Changing educational paragdims for online learning. (pp. 68 -117). Hershey, P.A: information Science Publishing. Celce-Murcia, M. (1987). Teaching pronunciation as communication. In J, Morley. (ED) Current perspectives on pronunciation. Washington DC: TESOL. Chaudron, C. (1984). The effects of feedback on students’ composition revisions RELC Journal, 15(2), 1-15. Cobb, P. (1994). Where is the mind? Constructivist and sociocultural perspectives on Mathematical development. Educational Researcher 23, no. 7: 13–20. http://edr.sagepub.com/content/23/7/13. Retrieved, September 20, 2012. Connor, U. and K. Asenavage, (1994). “Peer response groups in ESL writing classes: How much impact on revision?”. Journal of Second Language Writing. 3 (3): 257-276, 1994. Ellis, R. (1991). Second language acquisition a language pedagogy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ferm Lange, C. (2009). Corrective Feedback during communicative activities: A study of recasts as a feedback method to correct spoken English (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Karlstads University, Linköping. Ferris, D. (1999). The case for grammar correction in L2 writing classes: A response to Truscott, 1996. Journal of Second Language Writing, 8, 1–11. Fotos, S. (1994). Integrating grammar instruction and communicative language use through grammar consciousness raising tasks. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 323-51. Freedman, S. W. (Ed.). (1985). The acquisition of written language. Response and revision. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Freedman, S. & Sperling, M. (1989). Teacher student interaction in the writing conference: Response and teaching. In S. Freedman (Ed), The acquisition of written language: Response and revision. (106-130). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Hagege, C.(1996). “L’enfant aux deux langues” (The child between two languages), Greek translation, Polis editions, Athens 1999. (Original publication: Editions Odile Jacob, 1996). Heaton, J.B.(1975). Beginning Compositin throughPictures.Greenville: Longman Publication. Hedgcock, J. (2005). Taking stock of research and pedagogy in L2 writing. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 597- 613). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hyland, K. & Hyland, F. (2006). Feedback in second language writing: Contexts and issues. USA: Cambridge University Press. Kavaliauskiene, G. (2003). Ongoing Needs analysis as a factor to successful language learning. Language and Learning.1 (1). Kazuya, S. (2012). Effects of form-focused instruction and corrective feedback on L2 pronunciation development by Japenese learners of English. Language Learning, 62-2 Kazuya, S. (2013). Examining effects of form-focused instruction on L2 pronunciation development. Studies in second language acquisition. 35-1 Kim, J.S. 2005. The effects of a constructivist teaching approach on student academic achievement, self-concept, and learning strategies. Asia Pacific Education Review 6, no. 1: 7–19.

ALLS 5(1):81-88, 2014 88 Lyster, R. & Ranta, L. (1997). Corrective feedback and learner uptake: Negotiation form in communicative classrooms. Studies in Second Language Acquisition,19, 37-66. Magno, C., & Amarles, A.M. (2011). Teachers’ feedback practices in second language academic writing classrooms. The International Journal of Educational and Psychological Assessment, 6(2) 21-30. Marie Wood, N.(2004).(Self-Correction and Rewriting of Student Compositions: The Correction Code. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.OFFICE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAMS. Mendonca, C . &. Johnson, k. (1994). Peer Review Negotiations: Revision Activities in ESL Writing Instruction. TESOL Quarterly, 28(4), 745-769. Mitra, S., Tooley, J., Inamdar, P., Dixon, p. (2003). Improving English pronunciation: An automated instructional approach . The Massachusetts Institute of technology Information, Information Technologies and International development, Vol 1, No1 Paulus, T. (1999). The effect of peer and teacher feedback on student writing. Journal of second Language Writing, 8, 265-289. Saito, H. (1994). Teachers’ practices and students’ preference for feedback on second language writing: A case study of adult ESL learners. TESL Canada Journal, 11(2), 46-70. Schmidt, R. (1990). The Role of Consciousness in Second Language Learning. Applied Linguistics, 11, 129-158. Silva, T., & Brice, C. (2004). Research in teaching writing. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 70-106. Skehan,P.(1996). A Framework for the implementation of task based instruction. Applied Lingustic.17:38-62. Skehan, P.1998. A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning.Oxford:Oxford University Press. Tost, G. (2013). Bettering pronunciation through reading aloud and peer appraisal. Bellaterra Journal of Teaching and Learning Language and Literature. 6-1. VanPatten, B., & Benati, A. G. (2010). Key terms in second language acquisition. London: Continuum. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: Interaction between learning and development. Cambridge: MA. Harvard University Press. Willis,D. an J. Willis.2003.Task -based Language .In R.Carter and D.Nunan(eds). The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yurick, A.L., Robinson, P.D., Cartledge G., Lo, Y. & Evans, T.l.(2006). Using peer mediated reading as a fluency building activity for urban learners. Education and Treatment of Children , 29-3 Zhang, S. (1985). The difference effects of source of corrective on ESL writing proficiency. Occasional paper series no 9. Honolulu: University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of English as a Second Language.



Behavioral Objectives and Standards Movement Revisited

Nima Shakouri (corresponding author) Roudbar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran


Sepideh Mirzaee Department of English, Mashhad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran


Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.89 Received: 03/01/2014 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.89 Accepted: 28/02/2014 Abstract The present paper sparks a complementary argument that the development of standards movement must not be at the expense of sacrificing the achievement of behavioral objectives. Furthermore, due to the systemic and dynamic nature of standards, standards need to be revised off and on. Besides, the present writers taking a more or less relativist stance maintains that if and only if the goal of education is to change one's behavior, the behavioral objectives seem to be plausible; however, it is less than a realistic wish because classroom as a dynamic setting cannot be accomplished within the framework of feed-forward planning, where ends are classified before means are selected. Keywords: descriptors, standards, competencies, behavioral objectives 1. Introduction Due to the dynamic nature of education, much of the dialogue concerning the strengths and weaknesses of behavioral objectives and standards movement seems to be useful simply in opening new debates in language learning and teaching fields. Nevertheless, claiming that the objectives of a curriculum can be specified implies that the behavior of organisms is absolutely predictable and measureable. However, objectives can also be developed from purposes, wants, and philosophies, not only from the accuracy or accessibility of measures to access them. The present writers maintain that if and only if changing ones behavior is the goal of education, the behavioral objectives seem to be plausible; however, the goals of education are more than this. In fact, some goals of education are difficult to be specified in behavioral terms. Besides, standards movement as an alternative to behavioral objectives should be taken into consideration from a complementary perspective rather than from a contradictory one. That explaining about what students should know and can do has become the corner stone of standards movement is plausible, but due to the systemic and dynamic nature of standards, we should not overhear that even these standards are the product of an era inspired by a given philosophy. Thus, they need to be revisited. The present paper attempting to investigate the behavioral objectives in contrast with standards movement suggests that for the fulfillment of standards movement, it is time to bear in mind that since the beliefs hidden in standards reflect a specific time and place, standards call on a necessity to be reviewed. 2. Review of related literature 2.1 Behavioral objectives movement The use of behavioral objectives in instruction is the characteristics of a culture which sets a high value on efficiency and productivity (Kneller, 1972). In fact, the use of behavioral objectives as we know them today was popularized by Taylor (1911), and the roots of the movement go back to the scientific management movement in education and to early behaviorist psychology. As Taylor holds the principle objective of management should be to secure the utmost success of employers coupled with the maximum prosperity of the employees. In effect, success is the result of maximum productivity. Along the same line, Mayo (1927, cited in Montana, 1991) through a series of experiments known as the Hawthorne Studies concluded that worker productivity is related to social and psychological factors as well as the work itself and the physical movement. In other words, when workers know that they will be observed as part of an experiment, their productivity will increase. What’s more, the origin of behavioral objectives is also rooted in behavioral psychology which has its root within positivism (Williams & Burden, 1997). The term positivism as a version of empiricism, according to Richards and Schmidt (2002), was first coined by the French Philosopher, Auguste Comte who believes reality can be observed. In other words, as to Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2007), positivists define knowledge solely based on observable facts and does not give any credence to non-observable entities such as feeling and values. Among psychologists who trace a link between scientific management movement and behaviorist psychology, we can name Edward Thorndike. In this regard, Tumposky (1984) puts forth, "Thorndike was among those who link the burgeoning

ALLS 5(1):89-94, 2014 90 psychological school to the scientific management movement of education and argued that educational practices should be regulated according to the refined outcome of specific activities" (p. 295). 2.2 The major issue At the core of the behavioral objectives movement resides the emphasis on operational definitions and observable behaviors (Simons, 1973). Since researchers are unable to directly observe what is going on in people's minds, there is only their behavior to look at. Since behavior is often an indirect expression of knowledge, and the crucial distinction between knowledge and behavior is often ignored, the problem is so much that there is generally no simple and easily definable relationship between behavior and knowledge. Henceforth, as Kneller (1972) asserts, “to use behavioral objectives in individualized instruction is to overlook the essential differences between individual learning, knowing, and behaving” (p. 398). Nevertheless, by looking at behavior alone without considering its relationship to knowledge, the setting of instructional objectives often becomes an arbitrary, unprincipled, and unscientific process. The solution to this type of problem, according to Mager (1962), is to write a set of objectives for each class of skill or knowledge that you want the students to acquire. In fact, the objectives must be specified in advance in order to control the process of education. In the same line, the advocates of behavioral objectives contend that the use of behavioral objectives has a liberating effect on the students and the teacher by permitting students to opt alternate ways of mastering expertises (Van Ek, 1976). But this seems less than a realistic wish. What’s more, as Tumposky (1984) holds, objectives are derived from aims, wants, and philosophies, not from the accuracy or accessibility of measures used to assess them. In a sense, if the primary purpose of education was to change one’s behavior, the behavioral objectives would seem to be as a reasonable means for operating the process of human engineering. However, specifying some goals of education in behavioral terms is difficult. Changes in attitudes and feelings are considered reliable and legitimate educational aims, but are difficult to state in behavioral terms or means. Moreover, behavioral objectives are incompatible with different styles of learning and teaching. Classrooms as voyages of explorations cannot be accomplished within the framework of feed-forward planning, where ends are classified before means are selected. 2.3 Behavioral objectives and systems approach It is worth highlighting that one of the important features of behavioral objectives is its dynamic feature. Put simply Behavioral objectives cannot exist in isolation. They are inseparable part of a system. Therefore, lack of them might cause disorder in the system. In other words, advocating behavioral objectives is tantamount to advocating the systems approach. Systems approach encompasses the perspectives of reductionism. Systems approach was first proposed by Bertalanffy (1950). To Bertalanffy, systems might be either open or closed. He claims that all systems studied by physicists are closed: they do not interact with the outside world, that is, when a model of the solar system of an atom is made by a physicist, it is assumed that particles affect the whole system, and they do not have an interaction from the outside world. However, when we talk about practical phenomena including human beings, such assumptions are far-fetched. Consider separating an organism from surrounding; it will die in a while because of the lack of food, oxygen, and water. He continues organisms are open systems since they have interaction with surroundings. The peculiar feature of an open system is that it is in contact with outside world. In order to explain the inside and outside system, we need to know the system itself and the environment. The system, i.e., the organism, is not like a tube, it is a processor when receives an input and gives out an output. Accordingly, it is a truism that the behavior of an organism is predictable and measurable. Nevertheless, Eisner (1967) holds that behavioral objectives used as standards fail to measure achievement. In support of his claim, Eisner outlines three limitations of behavioral objectives:

1) Due to complexity and dynamicity of language instruction, behavior of students is hardly predictable (e.g., there is no reason that the one who performs well in algebra can write a sonnet well); the amount, and quality of learning that takes place in a classroom context, particularly when there is some interaction among learners, are only in small part predictable.

2) The constraints that various subject matters place on objectives make it difficult to specify the behavior of the student. For example, uniformity in response in courses such as mathematics and languages are desirable, while in other courses especially arts, such a specification is frequently impossible. In arts, where creativity is required, the particular behavior to be developed cannot simply be recognized.

3) Those activities which are qualitative are less amenable to quantitative assessment. For example, the extent to which a student is able to create an artistic object is determined by judgment. Here standards are inapplicable; that is; a particular product is judged with respect to the unique features it shows. Employing judgment, not standards, implies that valued qualities are not merely socially defined and are arbitrary in character.

Moreover, Tumposky (1984) holds that there is also little empirical data on the effects of behavioral objectives on learning. As learning is a complex phenomenon, no simple conclusion can be drawn that behavioral objectives facilitate the process of learning in an absolute sense. What makes us concerned about behavioral objectives is that many view it as a bandwagon which many jump on hoping to cure all the educational ills (Tumposky, 1984). Richards (2001), similarly, puts the major criticisms of behavioral objectives as follows:

1) Objectives turn teaching into technology. It is argued that objectives are linked to an efficiency view of education; that is, the most efficient means to an end is justified. But to ensure that the curriculum

ALLS 5(1):89-94, 2014 91 addresses educationally important goals, objectives should address meaningful experiences. One way to do it is to include both language outcomes and non-language outcomes.

2) Objectives trivialize teaching and are product-oriented. It is assumed that every purpose in teaching has an objective; the only worthwhile goal results in changes in student behavior. But, objectives need not be limited to observable outcomes. They can also describe processes and experiences, as well. In a nutshell, since objectives are limited to change in behavior; they cannot explain processes and experiences since they are not observable.

3) Objectives are unsuited to many aspects of language use. Objectives might be suitable for describing the mastery of skills, but less suited to such things as critical thinking, literary appreciation, or negotiation of meaning (pp. 127-128).

Ironically, behavioral objectives as Mager (1962) defines, covers three elements: (a) a performance or task statement; i.e., what learners have to do, (b) conditions statement; i.e., the conditions under which learners are to perform the task; and a standard or criterion statement; i.e., how well the task is going to be performed. A careful note should be made of conditions that could have considerable effects on learning and teaching. To put it in a nutshell, Reginald (1978) suggests a number of conditions under which behavioral objectives might be ineffective. These conditions are summarized as follows:

1) If students ignore the objectives provided, either because they are unaware of them, or because prior experience suggests that it is not important to take note of them;

2) If the objectives are too general, or too ambiguous, to be of particular assistance; 3) If the objectives are of extreme facility or difficulty; 4) If the objectives of particular interest are only a small proportion of those provided to students; and 5) If students are so conscientious, or so highly motivated, that they achieve the objectives regardless of

whether or not they are specified (p. 294). 2.4 Towards the loss of popularity During 1980s, behavioral objectives movement lost its popularity. The main reason behind this loss of popularity might be related to the year 1972 in which, Combs identified some other limitations and inadequacies of behavioral objectives approach. In fact, Combs’s unwillingness towards behavioral objectives appears to spark an argument in favor of competencies movement as an alternative to the use of behavioral objectives in program planning. According to Combs, (1) “behavioral objectives are of limited use and must be confined to the acquisition of precisely defined skills” (pp. 1, 6); (2) “behavioral objectives represent a symptomatic approach to changing behavior” (p. 7); (3) “behavioral objectives stifle the creativity of the classroom teacher” (p. 8); (4) “behavioral objectives cause the teacher to lose sight of the general goals of education” (p. 9); (5) “behavioral objectives are undemocratic” (p. 8); and (6) “behavioral objectives demoralize teachers” (p. 10). Though several of these criticisms might not seem warranted, battalions of educators who should have known better rolled up their sleeves and started to rewrite curriculum in terms of competencies. It is vital o note that like behavioral objectives, competencies movement employs a mosaic approach to language learning in that the whole (e.g., communicative competence) is constructed from the parts. In other words, the parts can be taught and tested incrementally to make the whole. However, the use of competencies in language learning is not without its critics. As Tollefson (1986, cited in Richards, 2001) claims, no valid procedures are available to develop competency specifications. Typically competencies are described based on intuition and experience (Richards, 2001). Since the present paper is not in charge of explaining competencies movement, it suffices to state that competencies movement calls on a necessity to integrate all the knowledge, know-how, and attitudes required for the solution of real life problems or situations. This syllabus seems to bridge the wall between school and everyday real life (NKwetisama, 2012). Richards and Rodgers (2001) also contend that this approach focuses on the outcomes of learning. It addresses on what students are expected to do rather than what they are expected to learn about. In sum, a competency-based model is concerned with the ability to perform a task. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that acquiring and developing competence is more than learning a set of skills. 2.5 A path to standards movement In our daily life, there are lots of standards. Generally, standards are to be defined as a point of reference. The entry for ‘standard’ in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (2010) is implicitly linked to the concept of reference: an authoritative or recognized exemplar of correctness, perfection, or some definite degree of any quality. According to International Reading Association and National Council of Teachers of English (1996), we are motivated by three core beliefs in defining standards for the English language arts. Standards are needed (1) to prepare students for the literacy requirements of the future and the present; (2) to articulate a shared vision of what the teachers, researchers, parents, and others expect students to attain; and (3) to promote high educational expectations for all students and to bridge the documented disparities that exist in educational opportunities. Diana Ravitch, Former Assistant Secretary of Education of USA, is commonly held as the chief architect of the modern standards movement. She puts it in straightforward manner that standards are created because they improve the activity of life. Everyone expects strict standards while building a house; shoddy work would put lives at risk. Even if you wish to drink a glass of water, you have some standards for the water to be drunk. Following this, many educators

ALLS 5(1):89-94, 2014 92 see the publication of the now famous report, ‘A Nation at Risk’, as the initiating event of modern standards movement (Marzano & Kendall, 1996). 2.6 Standards movement As a matter of fact, Education standards are the starting point for defining what students should know and be able to do in order to live and work in the 21st century. If there is no clarity or consensus about what students are supposed to know and be able to do, expectations for learning will be defined by the textbooks and traditional tests, and many students leave school without ever being challenged to their full potential. Thus, the lack of clear standards for what and how well students should learn has become a drawback in efforts to improve student achievement. Seen in this light, regarding the importance of standards, Lachat (1999) holds:

Defining clear standards for student learning is thus an important first step in the process of educating children to be effective thinkers, problem-solvers, and communicators so they can reap the rewards of full participation in a technology-driven information age (p.4).

He asserts that there are two types of standards: content standards and performance standards. The former describes the knowledge, skills, and understandings that students should have in order to attain proficiency in a subject area. In the same line, Marzano and Kendall (1996) have identified three categories of content standards: procedural, declarative, and contextual:

• Procedural standards are based on "procedural knowledge, the skills, and processes important to a given content area" (p. 12). Editing an essay can be considered as an example of procedural standards.

• Declarative standards are based on "declarative knowledge, [which] can be thought of as 'information' and usually involves component parts. For example, knowledge of the concept of 'democracy' includes understanding that decisions are made by the people, each person has a single vote, votes are weighted equally, and so on" (p. 12).

• Contextual standards are based on contextual knowledge—"knowledge in context, information, and/or skills that have particular meaning because of the conditions that form part of their description" (p. 12). Examples of contextual knowledge include: "modeling numbers using number line and classifying organisms" (p. 12).

Nunan (2007) also defines content standards as what students should know and be able to do as a result of instruction. To him, standards are fleshed out in terms of: (1) descriptors which are broad categories of discrete, representative behaviors; (2) progress indicators which are the assessable, observable activities that students may perform to show progress towards meeting the designated standard; and (3) classroom vignettes which are drawn from a wide range of classroom contexts and describe instructional sequences so that a clear idea of what the standards might look like is at hand. Nunan believes Performance standards, in contrast, spell out what students must demonstrate to be considered proficient in the subject matter defined in the content standards. Borthwick and Nolan (1996) describe the three components of performance standards as:

• Performance descriptions. Performance descriptions distill the content standards to identify what is essential and what is able to be assessed.

• Samples of student work. The performance descriptions are matched with samples of student work that have been judged to illustrate the quality of work expected to meet the standard at a given grade level.

• Commentaries on student work. The student work samples are accompanied by commentary that explains how the student work illustrates the quality required to meet the expectations set out in the performance descriptions.

2.7 Standards and equity The vision that inspires us to the employment of these standards is the truism that all students must have the opportunities, resources, time, and support needed to achieve mastery. From an equity perspective, education standards will not improve student achievement unless they are accompanied by policies and practices that directly address inequities in the resources available to schools (Lachat, 1999). Henceforth, opportunity-to-learn standards were proposed. He argues that what the opportunity-to-learn standards challenge us is to confront inequities that exist in our school system. In fact, schools must ensure that all students have the equal opportunity in the way to achieve their goals. Thus, there is a new mission and emphasis on accountability for the success of all students. Put simply, opportunity-to-learn standards can address the following areas:

● the quality and availability of curricula, instructional programs, and instructional materials; ● the extent to which curriculum, instruction, and assessment align with standards reflecting high expectations

for students; ● teacher capacity to provide high-quality instruction; ● financial and programmatic resources that support high levels of learning, including technology, laboratories,

and school libraries; ● teacher and administrator access to sustained, long-term professional development;

ALLS 5(1):89-94, 2014 93 ● a safe and secure learning environment; ● parent and community involvement with the schools; and ● non-discriminatory school policies (Lachat, 1999).

Thus, there is a new mission and emphasis on accountability for the success of all students. The term ‘mission’ implies that students, alone, are not responsible for their own learning, although the nature of standards leads to believe individuals responsible for their learning. McKay (2001, cited in McKay, 2007, p. 144), incompatible with the use of standards, states that this individualistic, rationalistic, competition-driven path “can lead to blame the victim mentality” which may be destructive to learning. Standard-based evaluation is not without its problems and controversies. According to Nunan (2007), some of these criticisms are as follows: ● Standard-based evaluation leads to fragmentation of the curriculum and its approach to instruction is

atomistic. ● Evaluating the overall worth of a program by tallying lists of items on a checklist is problematic since it

assumes the whole is simply the sum of the parts/since checklists provide quantitative information. ● To what extent, one can understand one’s underlying competence from samples of observable behavior.

Another problem related to the educational standards, according to Marzano and Haystead (2008), is the lack of uni-dimensionality. Principle of uni-dimensionality assumes that there is a single real latent variable to be measured in a test (Johnson & Junker, 2003, cited in Birjandi & Mosallanejad, 2010). Marzano and Haystead (2008) believe that the standards are not written with uni-dimensionality or effective assessment in mind, and thus mix multiple dimensions in a single statement which makes it almost impossible to effectively assess the content in standards. 3. Conclusion Behavioral objectives, ideally, provide a well-worked-out tool for rational planning in education. Behavioral objective movement has certainly made possible improvements in education, and should not be abandoned in disgust just because they do not succeed to meet more rigorous standards. Nevertheless, these objectives use should be tempered by a profound understanding of their restrictions. Furthermore, regarding specificity of objectives ther are not any comprehensible rules. In fact, when objectives have been specified they do not stipulate the choice of instructional means. In sum, if not often traced in our action, the wish for improved education in our country resides in the hearts of many of us. Standards can make concrete the prospect that all learners can learn to turn out work of high quality. The standards movement is at a turning point. Behind us lie some astonishing areas of progress and more than a few mistakes. When standards are properly implemented, students, parents, and teachers know the rules of the game, and adults have clear expectations. It is the gospel truth that standards are systemic (Snow & Katz, 2009). Effectiveness in a system is tied to how well different parts of it — teachers, students, and programs— perform. Also, standards are dynamic, some standards set five decades ago need to be revised. When educators write standards, they incorporate their beliefs into them, and since such beliefs reflect a specific time and place, these standards call on a necessity to be reviewed. References Bertalanffy, L. V. (1950). The theory of open systems in physics. Science, 111, 23-29. Birjandi, P., & Mosallanejad, P. (2010). An overview of testing and assessment. Tehran: Sepahan Publication. Borthwick, A., & Nolan, K. (1996, March). Performance standards: How good is good enough? Paper presented at the National Education Summit held in Palisades, New York. Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2007). Research methods in education. London: Routledge Falmer. Combs, A. W. (1972). Educational accountability: Beyond behavioral objectives. Washington, D. C.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Eisner, E. W. (1967). Educational objectives: Help or hindrance? The School Review, 52(3), 250-260. International Reading Association & National Council of Teachers of English (1996). Retrieved in 2012 from www.ncte.org/library/ NCTEFiles/Resources/Books/.../StandardsDoc Kneller, G. F. (1972). Behavioral objectives? No! Retrieved in 2013 from www.ascd.org/ ASCD /pdf/ journals/ed_lead/el_197202 Lachat, M. A. (1999). Standard, equity and cultural diversity. South Hampton: The Education Alliance. McKay, P. (2007). The standards movement and ELT for school-aged learners. In J. Cummins & C. Davison (Eds.), The international handbook of English language teaching (pp. 439-456). Norwell, M A: Springer. NKwetisama, C. M. (2012). The competency based approach to English language education and the walls between the classroom and the society in Cameroon: Pulling down the walls. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2(3), 516-523. doi: 1 0.4304/tpls.2.3.516-523

Mager, R. (1962). Preparing instructional objectives. Belmont, Calif: Fearon Publishers.

ALLS 5(1):89-94, 2014 94 Marzano, R. J., & Haystead, M. W. (2008). Making standards useful in the classroom. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Marzano, R. J., & Kendall, J. S. (1997). The fall and rise of standards-based education. Retrieved in 2011, from www.mcrel. org/pdf/standards /5962ir_fallandrise Montana, P. (1991). Management. New York: Barron’s Educational Series. Nunan, D. (2007). Standardized-based approaches to the evaluation of ESL instructions. In J. Cummins & C. Davison (Eds.), International handbook of English language teaching (pp. 421-438). New York: Springer. Oxford advanced learner's dictionary (8th ed.) (2010). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reginald, F. M. (1978). Resolution of conflicting claims concerning the effect of behavioural objectives on student learning. Review of Educational Research, 48(2), 291-302. Richards, J. C. (2001). Curriculum development in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. (2001). Approaches and methods in language teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press Richards, J. C., & Schmidt, R. (2002). Longman dictionary of language and applied linguistics. London: Longman Simons, H. D. (1973). Behavioral objectives: A false hope for education. The Elementary School Journal, 73(4), 173-181. Snow, M. H., & Katz, A. (2009). Standards and second language teacher education. In A. Burns & J. C. Richards, Second language teacher education (pp. 66-76). Cambridge: Cambridge university press. Taylor, F. W. (1911). The principles of scientific management. New York: Harper & Brothers. Tumposky, N. R. (1984). Behavioural objectives, the cult of eficiency, and foreign language learning: Are they compatible? TESOL Quarterly, 18(2), 295-310. Van Ek, J. A. (1976). The threshold level for modern language learning in schools. London: Longman.

Williams, M., & Burden, R. L. (1997). Psychology for language teacher: A social constructivist approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.



Civil Disobedience

Angela Khristin Brown E-mail: [email protected]


Abstract

There is a good child, of any race, who is bullied. And as he grows older, He joins a hate group or a gang too, was bullied by every race, who bullied me. And as I grew older fought for equality for everyone. This is why I became an activist. Thesis why I am a poet. God asks are unwilling to die, fighting for what you Believe. This is where I stand.

Keywords: African American Culture, Social Conditions of black literature, Interpretation

Quincy Troupe is a visionary poet who is always reaching out to walk and dance words upon a single page. Quincy uses his imagination through dialog with certain looks of rhythm of words which bounce off the page of unforgotten sound. Quincy prances across word that burst from childhood dreams that make you smile. Perhaps there is an explanation to why he creates hope to the disturbed voices in our head. It is through language that he decodes similes, metaphors and apostrophes out of clarity that trace our roots to our dark past which is from the eye of the beholder. Quincy's words bounce back at us with words of wisdom from the voice that hums in our head. Quincy maps his experience into beautiful schemes of imprisoned thought. Quincy has mirrored a menagerie of space on a blank page using pain and agony to slowly develop an illusion for movement. Quincy's senate is the blues in space that echoes in the air in spoken tongues. It is from dreams we pulsate life through shared idioms of time. When we can identify in how sorrow has touched our lives, we believe in fear itself will keep us alive. Fear is an invisible loom we live through rituals from desire. It is from this madness we imagine love is far deeper than fear itself. Young Blood

Under the weather. The one true love. It is bitter hot. Hot wind can burn. The taste of sweat, sizzles. A fresh blow of air. The angry wind blows hot air. I anticipate the tension of gas transpire. Can you survive the heat? I can. My body is amend to the conditions. Only resistance could bring it to tolerate the pain. I live in a surreal world. My world is imaginary. Images from my mind control my fate. I have the will to make the future come as I dream it. Of my life. At night, as I sleep, I see things that come true. If I am scared of dying, it is my fate. Some call it witch craft. If I were afraid someone will die in my dream, that person dies. Having the ability to see the future is witch craft. Only god controls destiny. The one who I felt was the one to marry. Time holds disposition to hover memories. Man follies with desire to hoard feelings we don’t want to understand. Mere inequity. The man did not feel the same as I did for him. Faltering mistakes. Bitterness weather. Man bids his last request to reconcile notions. Experience unresolved. A body thirst for solvency. Salt, a ubiquities cry for mercy. Insomnia, a reflection to homelessness. My true love was my first love. Dismantled body’s spirits travel as ghosts. Crying. Crying a morbid pain. An uncertainty to reason thoughts. I had never known what love meant until I met him. The wind howls. The wind cries for mercy. Pain from the deceived that howls for freedom. And now he is gone and will never return. An addiction to seek wisdom. Retaliation from desire to sustain probability. Question action for meaning. Our love was never meant to be. Statements used to entertain from fault to remain present. Unwelcome solitude unforgiving. The mind has its limits. Weathers revenge is a minds deadly defeat. Immortal death. To live life without reason. To be disillusioned about reincarnation. Life is a continuum of immortal dreams. It is better to love and lost. It is to imprison your soul within. Life has no mercy. Than it is to not ever have felt love at all. Where there are no real solutions to live by. Only a quest to live immortally, knowing that your dreams will live for eternity.

One must learn love from experiences....John Oliver Killen’s Derek Walcott poetry is a glimpse of how we review our journey. His writing is “a theatre of the sea." Derek presence is untouched. Derek's poetry is a window of hope. Derek has created an awareness that perpetuate a purpose amongst us which is a pencil that sketched a blue print in art. Derek draws an argument of betrayal in how artifacts become affections words. One can since the moral pride of infectious meaning that commences in his poem. The words in Derek's poems encourages us to to imagine a moral conformity, mystical to truth. Derek uses a delusion of a contorted experience that melts our heart. The words of Derek's poems becomes a device for rituals used to induce time. With Derek, darkness becomes sunrise. Words become spiritual essential to the art form. Nature is a pastoral place of response used in couplets, quatrains and blank verse. We must never forget his message that thunders an empty space within a perimeter of matter. Words are used as a structure pondering ideas of emotions that should not be disillusioned in society. With Derek, the idea of reconciliation becomes a metaphor for purpose. Sometimes when he feel pain, there is an urgency to trust your heart to the ones who really love you.

ALLS 5(1):95-98, 2014 96 Maries Condé is a fellow American who has voiced her vision on American culture with great confidence. Marie’s involvement with the black community has voiced the truth about human condition in America. Maries has encouraged a struggle of competence to negotiating peace amongst races. Maries is a prospect for peace. Maries has negotiated amongst her peers words of wisdom to unity to ignite immediate insight to the ailing problem that divides our nation. Maries is like a friend of circumstance we welcomed with the urgency we have come to recognize. Maries has been a voice of a generation of freedom. Let us understand the essence of her presence in our lives to impose value to understand our own faults to amplify transition. Maries is an amazing woman. She has lead us to believe in our race, our struggles as a race who has aspired our race the reasons why we live, the reasons for our struggle, our plight to choice. Marie’s poems are about what our race is facing today. Her work is a call of reflection to mediate answers. A call for change. We must not withdraw our cause for peace or we will be a slave habiting terror of a self-inflicting wound. Maries has managed to speak comfort in our leadership as a nation as a voice understood across cultures. Maries has a voice in our conquest to be heard as victims of rejection. Rejection can destroy our commitment. Maries encourages change. Change is a result of acceptance. It is what holds our future. There is a need for Mares to disclose purpose and humiliation in her work. Poetry is the initiative of explored thought. It is through words that mediate ideas. In Marie’s poems, extends all hope and all justice. In addition, Maries communicates with her audience progress. Maries is a mediator of words of conviction. Maries is an element of inspiration who teaches the conviction that we are responsible for our own actions. Maries is a council of American convention of human spirit that has met many challenges. It is from these challenges, which must be redeemed. Maries work is an advocator who demands attention, with deep concern from individuals who care to listen. It is from Marie’s voice which brings justice to us all.

When you deal with a person whose experiencing dementia, you can see where they're struggling with knowledge. You can see what they forget completely, what they forget but they know what they once knew. You can tell how they're trying to remember. Walter Mosley Walter Mosley influences our lives differently in how we identify and evaluate who we are as individuals. We respond to life situations in how we interpret ourselves. How we function in society as a whole, signifies invaluable differences in how we base our demeanor.

Mosley poems are defined by the image you make of yourself and not what others lead you to believe. It is how you read his poems that convey your self-image. Mosley's poetry is only a measurement. From memories since a child, I encounter times where I question my beauty. As I grew older, I began to understand the nature behind being beautiful meant to me. There are several journeys that led me to this altercation, which were grief, love and loneliness. All of these matters, because of the pain I faced made me a better person. I can identify with self-hate through attempting suicide. Self-pity is a form of grief. It takes a lot of energy to feel lonely because you hate what you do not understand. Self-pity comes from wanting to accept love in your life, when you do not understand the best love is from those who mean it. Mosley poems is an image. An image becomes a menagerie for acceptance. Mosley's poems can identify with what it means to love yourself. One must find true happiness, in order to love oneself and this will be reached after full maturation. The feeling of grief, love and loneliness is defined by reason. Mosely's poems determines character. By reading Mosely's poems is how we react to what motivates our actions. Our actions justify our fate. We are accountable our actions through interpretation in what dictates an experience or desire to promote change. Mosely poems is a reflection of our ability to transform into the imagery of the poems. Walter Mosley is a choice poet. Mosely poems is a since of existence. Mosley language speaks of honesty, idealism and filters emotions we can all relate to. Mosley speaks from life experience of his inner child. His poems are reflective of idealism. Mosely has a gift of transcending words into metaphors.

Discussions

In interpreting our emotions, we must infer on the measurement of the morals that dictate from sources to determine what makes a society free. We can determine our identity by the powerful form of interpreting the literature we read. Words are a powerful resource to identifying with personal experience. It is through learned experience that the meaning of a free society that must not be forgotten.

Conclusion

A good work ethic is a passable poem which implicate reason. It is how to articulate words in speech that make Mosely words a powerful form. Mosely conveys meaning through his work. One must read between the lines of a poem to become convinced in a writer’s artistry. It is from the language in words that convey meaning to who we are, where we came from and to determine what will be the outcome.

ALLS 5(1):95-98, 2014 97

ALLS 5(1):95-98, 2014 98



Individual Self-monitoring &Peer-monitoring In One Classroom in Writing Activities:

Who Is at Disadvantage?

Zohreh Zare Toofan E-mail: [email protected]

Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.99 Received: 07/01/2014 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.99 Accepted: 25/02/2014 Abstract

Writing is an important experience through which we are able to share ideas, arouse feelings, persuade and convince other people (white & Arndt, 1991). It is important to view writing not solely as the product of an individual, but as a cognitive, social and cultural act. Writing is an act that takes place within a context, that accomplishes a particular purpose and that is appropriately shaped for its intended audience (Hamplyones & Condon, 1989). Here, the present research considers the significance effects of two important independent variables self-monitoring and peer-monitoring in writing activities on Iranian EFL learners. In this research it was supposed to study new effects of two Meta cognitive strategies self-monitoring and peer-monitoring on 173 male and female learners' writing activities whose age ranged between the age 16-27, and they had a composing description writing paragraph as pre & post test in the same conditions. Although many studies have been conducted on the effects of self-monitoring with a variety of students across a variety of settings (Amato-Zech, Hoff, & Doepke, 2006 Cooper et al., 2007, Dunlap, Dunlap, Koegel, & Koegel 1991). But goal of this study was to increase the participant’s on-task behavior in self & peer-monitoring (E. Johnson, 2007, Self &Peer-monitoring added). Although both of them were useful for providing challengeable students, and became useful for prosocial life, but self-monitoring helped them to become awareness of their weaknesses and strengths to increase positive way of the quality and quantity of their learning in written task, and peer-monitoring occurred when the students achieved recognition level to evaluate the other peers' behavior, and it was obviously understood that it needed more training time to arrive at the level of recognition of each others' behavior.

Keywords: Self- monitoring, Peer-monitoring, Feedback, Composing description

1. Introduction

To write well, students are expected to have self-regulation skills (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Graham & Harris, 2000; Hayes & Flower, 1980; Zimmerman & Kitsantas, 1999). For example, experienced writers successfully set goals, self-monitor, and reflect on their learning process through iterative writing and rewriting. Among the various self-regulation skills, self-monitoring is known to be particularly critical in learning to write (Cresswell, 2000; Xing, 2004). Self-monitoring involves accessing information about ongoing cognitive or affective processes, states, or memory retrieval and evaluating that information on either implicit or explicit criteria (Reder & Schunn, 1996; Shimamura, 1996). In the context of writing, self-monitoring involves evaluating information about what is currently being written or what has been written and noting some compatibility or incompatibility with a mental representation of what the written text should be (Hacker, 1994). Self-monitoring involves accessing information about ongoing cognitive or affective processes, states, or memory retrieval and evaluating that information on either implicit or explicit criteria (Reder & Schunn, 1996; Shimamura, 1996). In the context of writing, self-monitoring involves evaluating information about what is currently being written or what has been written and noting some compatibility or incompatibility with a mental representation of what the written text should be (Hacker, 1994).

At this stage, it is needed to take a brief look at this question that what we mean by meta-cognitive? Flavell (1976) defined meta-cognition as ‘‘knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive processes and products or anything related to them” and stated that ‘‘Meta-cognition refers, among other things, to the active monitoring and consequent regulation and orchestration of these processes in relation to the cognitive objects or data on which they bear.” Hype and Bizar (1989) defined meta-cognition as ‘‘a process where the individual carefully considers thought in problem solving situations through the strategies of self-planning, self-monitoring, self-regulating, self-questioning, self-reflecting, or self-reviewing” (p. 1). McKeachie (2000) stated that meta-cognition is thinking about one’s learning and thinking. On the other hand, meta-cognitive strategies are the instructional strategies that allow learners to use their meta-cognition in problem solving. According to Ridley, Schutz, Glanz, and Weinstein (1992), they include taking conscious control of learning, planning and selecting strategies, monitoring the progress of learning, correcting errors, analyzing the effectiveness of learning strategies, and changing learning behaviors and strategies when necessary. Proceeding from what has been said above, in this study we define meta-cognition as the ability to understand and monitor one’s own

ALLS 5(1):99-111, 2014 100 thoughts and the assumptions and implications of one’s activities (Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, & Campione, 1983; Butterfield & Belmont, 1977&Falvell, 1979). Flavell (1979) proposed a formal model of meta-cognitive monitoring to include four classes of phenomena and their relationships. According to his model, ‘‘a person’s ability to control a wide variety of cognitive enterprises occurs through the actions and interactions among four classes of phenomena: (a) meta-cognitive knowledge, (b) meta-cognitive experiences, (c) tasks or goals, and (d) actions or strategies” (p. 906). Blakey and Spence (1990) proposed six strategies for developing meta-cognitive behaviors, these strategies include: identifying ‘‘what you know” and ‘‘what you don’t know”, talking about thinking, keeping a thinking journal, planning and self-regulation, debriefing the thinking process, and self-evaluation. Wahl (2000) presented three meta-cognitive strategies: planning, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation and these can lead to cognitive strategies as in concept maps and outlining. In addition, he presented some questions that facilitate the learners’ meta-cognition, such as ‘How much time do I need to set aside to learn this? (Planning)’, ‘Do I understand what I am reading or learning? (Self-monitoring); and ‘How can I measure my success? (Self-evaluation). Christine (2003) said that meta-cognitive strategies are necessary to aid students in comprehending a text and achieving higher levels of thinking. She focused especially on teachers’ modeling and motivation to encourage students to make these strategies on their own. In sum, meta-cognitive strategies can be defined as strategies that empower learners to take charge of their own learning in a highly meaningful fashion. They are helpful for students who have learning problems.

Now, that is essential to say something about corrective feedback over learners' writing, Ellis (2008) determines as a basis for a systematic approach to investigating the effects of written corrective feedback, this article presents a typology of the different types available to teachers and researchers. The typology distinguishes two sets of options relating to (1) strategies for providing feedback (for example, direct, indirect, or Meta linguistic feedback) and (2) the students’ response to the feedback (for example, revision required, attention to correction only required). Each option is illustrated and relevant research examined. How teachers correct second language (L2) students’ writing is a topic that has attracted enormous interest from researchers and teachers alike. However, as a recent review of feedback on L2 students’ writing (Hyland and Hyland 2006) makes clear, despite all the research there are still no clear answers to the questions researchers have addressed. Hyland and Hyland observed: while feedback is a central aspect of L2writing programs across the world, the research literature has not been equivocally positive about its role in L2 development, and teachers often have a sense they are not making use of its full potential. (p. 83) Guenette (2007) pointed out that one of the reasons for the uncertainty lies in the failure to design corrective feedback (CF) studies that systematically investigate different types of written CF and control for external variables that are likely to impact on how effective the CF is. One way forward, then, might be for researchers and teachers to systematically identify the various options available for correcting students’ writing as a basis for both designing future studies and for pedagogical decision making. Five basic strategies for providing written CF can be identified, with a number of options associated with some of them.

Feedback driven learning is hardly controversial; indeed, it is a main theme in both the form-focus and focus-on-forms literature (Lightbown, 1998 & Lyster, 1997). Nevertheless, feedback for writing errors has been and remains a divisive topic. It divides learners and teachers (learners typically insist on getting feedback on their errors, whether they can make sense of it or not; learners tend to define writing quality as absence of errors, while teachers treat error as one of a number of concerns). It divides teachers and researchers (few writing teachers manage to avoid spending huge amounts of time on error feedback, while writing researchers speculate that error feedback may do more harm than good (Truscott, 1996) or write whole books that never mention the topic (Hyland, 2002 & Cobb, 2003). In fact, few who are in close contact with the writing classroom have any real doubt that errors are important. Learners think their errors are important, and a survey by Errey (2000) showed that academic essay graders in four content areas ranked grammatical accuracy 10th of 24 factors in grading ESL learners’ assignments. It is also known that grammar does not look after itself nor flow automatically from comprehension of input (pace Krashen, 1984, and his followers). This has been shown for uninstructed (Perdue & Klein, 1992) as well as school-based learning. A number of Canadian immersion studies (Swain, 1985; Lightbown, 1992 &Lyster, 1998) have shown that comprehension of meaning and content by itself, even at deep levels and over long periods, does not necessarily culminate in a native-like grammar.

1.1 Statement of Problem and Purpose of Study

As regarding self-monitoring, and peer-monitoring; here we discuss about the matter that which one is more important than the other? According to many research, we will know that self-monitoring can help students to be independent and overcome their learning disabilities, beside of that peer-monitoring helps student in cooperative learning and problem-solving activities to monitor each others' behaviors, then they become provided to social life, and they will be able to evaluate each others' tasks. Such meta-cognitive strategies are both facilitate learning process, however; we want to know that which one is not really practical among students, and who is at disadvantage in this study? Or if it is practical, in what ways we can teach them such strategies to benefit the most useful in classroom, and which one of them is more helpful for given to students

The purpose of the study is to determine how we can manipulate them in classroom, upon what states we can arrange the tasks toward this goal; whether peer-monitoring is better or self-monitoring?

ALLS 5(1):99-111, 2014 101 1.2 Significance and Justification for the Study

For many years we hope to come to this conclusion that meta-cognitive strategies such as self-monitoring and peer-monitoring can support students to become a successful person in classroom, society, everywhere that they exist and they will learn to be logically independent from the others for evaluating themselves and each other behaviors. The most significant issue in this study, is the practical way for teaching such strategies for supporting students in a good life and society.

To make self-monitoring most effective, strategies should be used constantly and overtly at first and then faded to less frequent use and more subtle use across time (Stainback & Stainback, 1980). It is also important to ensure that students have learned the skills and behaviors that teachers want them to perform as they are using the self-monitoring strategies. To help maintain and generalize positive behavioral changes, self-monitoring should be combined with methods that allow students to evaluate themselves against their earlier performance and to reinforce themselves for their successes (Goldstein, Harootunian, & Conoley, 1994; Hallahan & Kauffman, 2000; Porter, 2002; Schunk, 1997; Smith, 2002; Stainback & Stainback, 1980; Vaughn, Bos, & Schumm, 2000).

1.3 Research Questions

The present dissertation set out to find answers to the following research questions:

1-Do self-monitoring and peer- monitoring affect the Iranian EFL learner's writing ability differently?

2- Is there any correlation between type of monitoring and Iranian EFL learners' gender in their writing skill?

1.4 Hypothesizes

1- Self monitoring and peer monitoring affect the Iranian EFL learners' writing ability differently.

2- There is a positive correlation between type of monitoring and Iranian EFL learners' gender in their writing skill.

1.5 Self-Monitoring in Writing

Self-Monitoring

Now, we should know about the two terms of study which are most involved in our research program as bellow:

Self-monitoring is a meta-cognitive strategy that learner is often known about his or her own behaviors to evaluate in right direction with relating to goals. Now we should know some few sentences about meta–cognitive strategy and ask a question what is meta-cognitive? meta-cognitive is thinking about thinking, is a term used in information processing theory to indicate an executive function, strategies that involve planning for learning, thinking about the learning process as it is taking place, monitoring of one's production or comprehension, and evaluating after an activity is completed (Purpura 1997). Meta- cognition has to do with knowledge and awareness of one's cognitive strengths and weaknesses as well as self-regulation, which guides an individual in the coordination of that awareness while engaged in cognitive activities (Wong, 1999). On other words, cognitive strategies are used to monitoring by meta- cognitive strategies.

Self-monitoring occurs when an individual self-assesses whether a behavior has occurred and then self-records the results (Nelson & Hayes, 1981). Karen says self-monitoring in writing occurs in three areas: attention, performance, and strategy use. Self-monitoring works well with goal setting. Self-monitoring strategies are most effective with students who have the required skill, but do not apply it. Difficulties in organization, attention, work initiation, and work completion may be decreased through the use of self-monitoring strategies. Increased academic achievement may also be a secondary result of a successful self-monitoring plan. After the goal has been set; teachers should help students understand their current performance and help students see their improvements.

O’Malley & Chamot (1990) define self-monitoring as “checking one’s comprehension during listening or reading, or checking the accuracy and/or appropriateness of one’s oral or written production while it is taking place” and contrast this with self-evaluation, which is “checking the outcomes of one’s own language learning against a standard after the learning has been completed”.

As we need to know about the self-monitoring itself, there is needed to take a look at this term in broad. Self-monitoring is an act of evaluating the learners themselves , they should be aware of their weaknesses and strengths during and after the activity they do , so they will be able to evaluate themselves correctly what happens for them when they need to know more about the task.

Self monitoring may be easily implemented into the classroom, takes little time to teach to students, and is a manageable intervention for the teacher (Smith, Nelson, & Young, 1988). Self-monitoring strategies also shift the responsibility from teachers to students who then are given the opportunity to regulate their own learning instead of relying on others (Agran et al., 2005; Hughes, Copeland, Agran, Wehmeyer, Rodi, & Presley, 2002).

ALLS 5(1):99-111, 2014 102 1.6 Peer-Monitoring in Writing

Peer-Monitoring

Peer-monitoring in teaching, the use of observation and assessment of what is happening in the classroom during learning activities that is carried out for students by other students in class (Jack c. Richards & Richard Schmidt, 2002).

Peer-monitoring is designed to run on a general purpose networked system where users can log into any node at any time and run any mix of parallel and sequential programs, and batch and interactive applications. The three main goals in designing Peer-monitoring are: to efficiently provide, in real-time, system resource usage information; to scale to large-sized systems; and to be fault tolerant. The system also needs to be flexible enough to allow nodes to easily enter and leave the peer to peer network (Newhall et al., 2011).

Peer-monitoring is an action that individuals respond to their peers' behavior or performance, it allows them to encourage their peers to perform well, and deters inappropriate behavior by increasing the chances that it would be detected. Here, we can classify peer-monitoring in two subcategory; first is direct peer-monitoring, that it occurs when participants or students understand their peers' behavior result and they respond in forthright way, second is indirect peer-monitoring that it occurs when the students avoid to monitor poorly performance of peers.

Peer-monitoring is an action when two youth are assigned to evaluate, and report the positive actions of other peers' classmates, this action needs more recognition about the peers, and therefore, they should increase their level of recognition that students should identify clear classification of positive behaviors that is monitored.

1.7 Feedback in Writing

Milligan (2012) indicates types of feedback as following:

1.7.1 Positive or reinforcing Useful in identifying and encouraging helpful and effective behaviors.

1.7.2 Constructive Useful in identifying and adjusting behaviours that impede effective professional development.

1.7.3 Formal Written evaluations that happen periodically throughout a placement.

1.7.4 Informal Verbal comments given on a more regular basis during or after practice situations.

1.7.5 Formative Given throughout the placement and is intended to improve the learning experience; can be delivered quickly and throughout the placement; the more often it occurs, the easier and more normalized it will be.

Formative evaluation is generally any evaluation that takes place before or during a project’s implementation with the aim of improving the project’s design and performance.

1.7.6 Summative Given at the conclusion of a placement and is intended to provide a summary evaluation of a student’s clinical performance; best provided in a private, comfortable space that can encourage open communication.

Deleware Department of Education (2012) defined a summative evaluation is the final rating of a teacher’s performance based upon the evidence gathered through the formative feedback appraisal cycle. A summative is the overview of all formatives.

1.8 Methodology

1.8.1 Participants

Totally 173 students including 41 male learners and 132 female learners in the age range of 15 to 27 at the intermediate level of Rashed Institute English language department of Mashhad districts of Khorasan Razavi will be asked to participate in this study. Subjects in classes will become homogenous in methodology used at school, type of school attended by each group, numbers of hours devoting to the teaching of English, level of language proficiency and their age.

1.8.2 Instrument

The following instruments are used for this study:

1. A General English Proficiency Test Nelson which determines the proficiency level of the subjects in English.

2. Composing a Description Paragraphs Test which determines the idea of study whether self-monitoring or peer-monitoring is good by following topics:

A-It's better to see a movie or read a book version of a film.

B-Which transportation do you prefer to travel and why? Traveling by plane, train or bus

ALLS 5(1):99-111, 2014 103 1.8.3 Design

The present research set up an experimental study with a pre-test post-test design with random assignment to conditions. This study measured students’ writing performance and their levels of planning and revising writing strategy before and after the treatment.

The reasons behind choosing such a design are as follows:

1. Some elements such as selecting groups by randomization, pre- and post-test, treatments, and the effects of several variables which are tested at the same time.

2. Tasks are devised and administered to the subjects, and they have double purpose of the treatment and post-test design.

3. The purpose of General English Proficiency Test is to establish level of learners' ability of their language proficiency before the task is administered.

In this study, we should avoid intrusive and disruptive implication items for making good design, and all variables must be controlled if they have effect on a specific independent variable. For considering generalizability, we should give them equal treatment to experimental group of subjects with real situation of educational program that is workable among large amount of subjects at the same state. Observation is very important in collecting data through some combination of notes, audio or visual; we should be careful about the descriptions of learners' activities without unduly influencing the events. After that, analyzing data which was received from different questioners have supported implications of research idea.

1.8.4 Scoring Method

According to Khalaf Ibnian (2011) in Table1 considered all characteristics for writing a good paragraph. Total score was out of 45 points. Each learner has 10 scores except proficiency test. They were included 5 scores for their pre-test and 5 scores for learners' post test. In both pre & post test, 5 scores were including researcher- first rater- second rater- student self & peers' mark.

Table1. Scoring Method

Points Related Skills The Criteria 1 3 1- Clarity of ideas 3 2- Relevant supporting details 3 3- Dividing the essay into introduction , body and

conclusion

3 4- Moving smoothly from introduction to body to conclusion

3 5- Well-organized paragraph 3 6- Logically sequenced ideas Mechanics of

writing 2

3 1- Punctuation 3 2- Spelling 3 3- Grammar Language use 3 3 1- Appropriate choice of words 3 2- Accurate use of expression Creative abilities 4 3 1- Many ideas (Fluency) 3 2- Varied ideas and points of view (Flexibility) 3 3- Unique titles and ideas (Originality) 3 4- Embellishing ideas with details (Elaboration) 45 Total Points

ALLS 5(1):99-111, 2014 104 1.8.5 Procedures

To achieve the objective of this study the following procedures would be taken by the researcher:

First a group of learners in English language department randomly selected, and then a General Proficiency Test Nelson was given to determine their proficiency level. After that, two composing description topics were given to them, after that they should have wrote three paragraphs(introduction- body- conclusion) about 120-180 words in pre-test. After finishing writing, students evaluated their own writing by themselves, to monitor their own strengths, and weaknesses, find errors and mistakes, then peers evaluated each other's writing paper by different color, and monitored peers' strengths, and weaknesses. All writing papers would be also scored by the researcher, and another two raters, so each learner had 5scores for his or her pre-test papers out of 45 points. After scoring papers they have been given treatment to those students who were not able to write a good paragraph, or they need their teacher's help to follow up a plan how to continue their writing, then the teacher have thought them to write well-organized paragraphs and tell them about their mistakes, grammatical points such as: tenses, passive & active sentences, punctuation, accurate use of expression, appropriate words, and everything related to a well-organized paragraph. In this study we will observe the learners how they will be cooperative, and how they follow the procedure exactly, and some of them will be very serious about this part, and they shouldn't lose anything, they eagerly needed their teacher help whether they could find the other classmates' mistakes or not. But the time for treatment wasn't enough, and they had basically problems with their selecting good expression, or appropriate words. Some of them will ask the teacher for more times. The researcher has taken some notes relating to learners' behaviors. After treatment a post-test has been given at the same condition of their pre-test , they have been given a writing composition description paper including two similar topics; they had to choose one topic, and should write description paragraphs about 120-180 words; they monitored themselves by blue pen to clarify their own strengths, and weaknesses, then peers could have been checked each other's mistakes to monitor each other's strengths, and weaknesses by red pen. All post-test writing papers have been scored by present researcher, and another two raters of the same level, so all learners had 5scores for their post-test. The researcher should consider two independent variables self-monitoring, peer-monitoring for scoring their writing composing description. Totally, each learner had 10 marks for both pre & post test except language proficiency test. Both self and peers should have been given their classmates one mark for pre-test and one mark for classmates' post test.

2. Analysis of data

First, the data was given to SPSS software; there were the mean scores of raters both in pre & post-test for acquiring actual score.

Table 2 is descriptive statistic data of all items:

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics N Range Minimum Maximum Sum Mean Std. Deviation Variance

Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Std. Error Statistic Statistic Proficiency 173 11 8 19 2282 13.19 .247 3.248 10.551 strength 173 2 0 2 158 .91 .046 .599 .359 Pretesters 173 32.00 10.00 42.00 4410.6

7 25.4952 .58421 7.68406 59.045

Posttesters 173 33.33 10.00 43.33 5062.33

29.2620 .49940 6.56852 43.145

Preself 173 25 20 45 5387 31.14 .458 6.023 36.271 PrePeer 173 27 18 45 5128 29.64 .464 6.100 37.208 Postself 173 27 18 45 5421 31.34 .470 6.184 38.247 Postpeer 173 27 18 45 5267 30.45 .480 6.317 39.900 Valid N (listwise)

173

Table 3 and 4 indicated the division among strong, medium, and weak learners, and it was shown how much percentage belongs to females or males. So, as it was shown in table 3, frequency of most learners have been at medium level, and we had less strong and weak learners.

Table 3. percentage of strong-medium-weak learners Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

Percent Valid strong 39 22.5 22.5 22.5

medium 110 63.6 63.6 86.1 weak 24 13.9 13.9 100.0 Total 173 100.0 100.0

Table 4 percentage between genders Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

Percent Valid male 41 23.7 23.7 23.7

female 132 76.3 76.3 100.0 Total 173 100.0 100.0

ALLS 5(1):99-111, 2014 105 Table 5 was a cross table of two genders who acted in proficiency test. Proficiency test was a placement test for selecting intermediate level learners in this research, and it was shown comparison among learners in two kinds of graphs: Bar graphs 1, 2, and Pie graphs 1, 2 that show the division of strong, medium, and weak learners between two genders. As you can see in bar graph 2 and pie graph 2, females were the most weak, and medium learners who acted in proficiency test, but males were the strongest learners who have been acted in proficiency test. So, males' performance was better than females.

Table 5. gender * Proficiency Cross tabulation Proficiency Total

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 gender male 0 0 0 7 3 1 2 6 3 4 7 8 41

female 13 11 17 19 8 18 9 11 6 15 5 0 132 Total 13 11 17 26 11 19 11 17 9 19 12 8 173

Bar graph 1. Learners who are in strong, medium, weak level in proficiency test

Pie graph 1. Percentage of strong, medium, and weak learners in proficiency test

Bar graph 2. Comparison of two genders who acted in proficiency test

ALLS 5(1):99-111, 2014 106

Pie graph 2. Percentage of genders in proficiency test

Then, we come to test the first hypothesizes:

1- Self monitoring and peer monitoring affect the Iranian EFL learners' writing ability differently.

According to many researches that I have read about self-monitoring, it had positive effect on learners' writing activities. There was significance and positive relation between self-monitoring and peer-monitoring; because both of them were useful for prosocial life of learners' writing activities and can help to improve their writing abilities.

Table 6. Comparison Means preself & prepeer Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Pair 1 Preself 31.14 173 6.023 .458

PrePeer 29.64 173 6.100 .464 Table 7. Comparison Means preself & prepeer in T-Test Paired Differences t d

f Sig. (2-tailed) Me

an Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper

Pair 1

Preself - PrePeer

1.497

2.528 .192 1.118 1.876 7.789

172

.000

Using paired samples test, as you see in tables 6, we had comparison means between pre-test self-monitoring & pre-test peer-monitoring that their means were between 29-31, and they differ just in 2 points. In Table 7. Sig.(2-taield) was (.000), and it is lower than 5%, the difference was significant, their means were not equal, so there was significant difference between pre-test self-monitoring scores & pre-test peer-monitoring scores.

Table 8. Comparison Means Postself & Postpeer Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Pair 1 Postself 31.34 173 6.184 .470

Postpeer 30.45 173 6.317 .480 Table 9. Comparison Means Postself & Postpeer in T-Test Paired Differences t df Sig. (2-

tailed) Mean Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower Upper Pair 1

Postself - Postpeer

.890 2.642 .201 .494 1.287 4.431 172 .000

By considering tables 8 & 9; it is obvious that the difference between pre & post test is significant.

2.1 Major Findings

1-According to many studies about self-monitoring, it has positive effect on learners' writing activities. There is significance and positive relation between self-monitoring and peer-monitoring; because both of them are useful for prosocial life of learners' writing activities and can help to improve their writing abilities. By conducting this research, it was allocated that there was a positive and direct relation between self-monitoring and peer-monitoring strategies, it especially had more advantages for learners who were weaker than the other classmates, they progressed during writing tasks, but there was not much more change on the performance of strong learners, in this case researcher hypothesis is

ALLS 5(1):99-111, 2014 107 rightly made. In this study, males were better learners than females. Therefore, we face an important question to follow up in future study whether there is any relation between genders and learning writing tasks among strong learners.

2- Although both of them are useful for providing challengeable students, and become useful for prosocial life, but self-monitoring will help them more to become awareness of their weaknesses and strengths to increase positive way of the quality and quantity of their learning in written task, and peer-monitoring occurs when the students have recognition to evaluate the other peers' behavior, and it is obviously understood that it needs more training to receive the level of recognition of each others' behavior. Peer- monitoring has more effect and power than self- monitoring on EFL Iranian learners in their writing activities. By conducting this research, it was shown that self-monitoring did better than peer-monitoring; they were sometimes seen as complementary techniques which we could apply in writing classroom at the same time. Peer-monitoring needed to achieve a good level of recognition, and peer to peer programs should be specified according to the needs of learners, so goal setting is significant issue to apply in writing classroom activities, without step by step lesson plan it wouldn't be successful especially in large classes. During learning process, observations showed that cooperative learning was much more successful with beneficial corrective feedback, the learners asked for more help of their teachers, and classmates. However, it effected less than self-monitoring, and peer-monitoring programs were not successful as much as self-monitoring. In this study it was induced, whenever self-monitoring effects increased, peer-monitoring effects would also increase, but vice versa process was not possible. So in this case the researcher hypothesis was rejected.

3. Conclusion

As Ruegg (2010) has mentioned in her study language acquisition is not a cumulative linear process, so it is not certainly predictable how learners can do their writing task perfectly, and making errors is inevitable for each learner, feedbacks are good features to provide them new style of learning to write without any draft or any samples as I have seen in my students, they need some features to imitate, and follow their goal of writing process. Feedback in the process approach to writing is different in that the students can use the feedback on drafts to improve their writing between drafts. In such a case, the overall goal is a reasonable level of accuracy in the final draft. On the other hand, in journal writing the goal is for the feedback to affect students’ writing in the long term; that is, to facilitate the development of their interlanguage. From the significantly lower repetition scores of the students in the treatment group of this study, it appears that the feedback may have had the effect of limiting the number of times students made the same errors in subsequent journal entries. This would seem to indicate that students were taking notice of the feedback and it was indeed affecting language development in the long term.

As Peterson (2010) mentioned students feel a greater commitment to improving their writing when they have the autonomy to decide whether or not to incorporate the feedback in subsequent drafts. Students should always feel that they may use the feedback in their own way that the feedback is suggestive, rather than prescriptive. Feedback on writing is most valuable to students’ writing development when it takes place at the beginning and middle stages of the writing process. This is the time when students can use the feedback to revise and edit their writing.

We came to this conclusion that all teachers could identify their tasks according to learners' real needs and follow up some extra activities such as group working or cooperative tasks that feedback them appropriately in students. Although errors were inevitable, those learners who have been involved with their real need task, it might help them a lot to give a corrective feedback. There was normally no need to make them a draft or sample to do their writing task, of course, they needed some rules to adopt their behavior to recognize their right or wrong behavior of learning, we can specify one appropriate strategy such as self-monitoring or peer- working, then it will clearly manage their needs, and writing process would have been facilitated better than the previous time, we could have observed the results of our tasks sooner according to their needs. Aside from all techniques which have been used in class, as I've observed in all my classes, learners who have monitored themselves were good followers of system in writing process, and they would have been a skillful person in their learning task very soon.

3.1 Limitation of the Study

For using peer-monitoring strategy in writing classroom, we faced to some limitation that we should have been aware of recognition term which was necessary for peers, because they should arrive at the level of recognition, and it has been taken time for preparing the peers for the level of recognition to be able to evaluate the other peers according to specific evaluation area, and specific evaluation criteria that was identified by teacher in classroom, and we are not still sure about them for the exact purpose of peer-monitoring in one classroom, because it's not testable accurately. So, before using this strategy, we should teach them how peers could have been evaluated their classmate's performance according to specific criteria that they recognized how to evaluate the peer's performance and they should have been at the level of recognition.

Another limitation for this study is training. Training is a critical aspect of ensuring consistency and confidence in peer supporters.Essential specific training should have been developed in association with the defined role of the peer supporter within the peer-to-peer program. Some programs have been developed or adapted their own training program while others used external training programs.

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ALLS 5(1):99-111, 2014 110 APPENDIX In the name of God General English Proficiency Test Nelson Name of the student:……………………………………………… Name of the school………………………………………………… (Allotted time: 25 min) Part one: Select the best answer. 1-Alicia, ……………..the window please. a) opens b) open c) opened d) will open 2-The movie was…………….the book. a) as good b) good c) good as d) as good as 3-Mery’s hobbies include jogging, swimming, and ……………

a) to climb the mountain b) climb mountain c) to climb d) climbing mountains

4-Who is …………………,Marina or Sachiko? a) tallest b) tall c) taller d) the tallest

5- The concert will begin…………………fifteen minutes. a) in b) on c) with d) about

6-I have only a ……………Christmas cards left to write. a) few b) fewer c) less d) little

7-Each of the Olympic athletes………….for months, even years. a) have been training b) were training c) has been training d) train

8-You were………. the New York office before 2 p.m. a) supposed call b) supposed to call c) supposed calling d) suppose to call

9- If you’re a good boy, we will let you ……… the TV tonight a) to watch b) watch c) watching d) that you watch Part 2: Select the one underlined word or a phrase that is incorrect. 10-I heard the front door to be opened and my wife came in.

a) heard b)front door c) to be opened d) came in 11- “She should have gone shopping,” I thought, but after waiting for ten minutes, I telephoned her mother.

a) should have gone b) shopping c) waiting d) telephoned 12-Mr. Olsen is telephoning a American Red Cross for help.

a)is b)a c) Red d) for 13- “You should have left me a note,” I said. “If you had, I would have known where you were.”

a) have left b) a note c) had d) were 14-Petra intends to starting her own software business in a few years.

a) intends b) starting c) software d) few 15-Each day after school, John run five miles.

a) each b)after c) run d)miles 16-He goes never to the company softball games.

a)never b)the c)softball d) games 17-Do you know the student who books were stolen?

a) do b)know c)who d) were 18-Jennifer will spend her vacation either in Singapore nor India.

a) will b) her c) in d) nor 19- I told the salesman that I was not interesting in buying the latest model.

a)told b) that c)interesting d) buying 20- Fredrick used work for a multinational corporation when he lived in Malaysia.

a) used work b)multinational c) when d) lived

Part 3: Select the best answer (vocabulary) 21-Many cultures have special ceremonies to celebrate a person’s …………….of passage into adulthood.

a) write b) right c) writ d) rite 22- Do you ……………….where the nearest grocery store is?

a)know b)no c) now d) not 23-Peter says he can’t………………our invitation to dinner tonight.

a) accept b)except c) expect d)accent 24-Smoking is dangerous for your health, try to………….it.

a) quite b)quit c) quiet d)quick 25-He doesn’t work but he gets a good……… from his investments

a) wage b) earning c) income d) salary

ALLS 5(1):99-111, 2014 111 Part 4: Select the best answer (reading comprehension) A: Please be prepared to give your presentation on the monthly sales figures at our upcoming staff meeting. In addition to the accurate accounting of expenditures for the monthly sales, be ready to discuss possible reasons for fluctuations as well as possible trends in future customer spending. 26- The main focus of the presentation will be…………….. .

a)monthly expenditures b)monthly salary figures c)monthly sales figures d)staff meeting presentations

B: Leave Interstate 25 at exit 75. Follow that road for 2 miles. After 1 mile, you will pass a small shopping center on your left. At the next set of traffic lights, turn right onto Maple Drive. Erik’s house is the third house on your left. It’s number 33, and it is white green trim. 27- What is Erlik’s address?

a) Interstate 25 b) 2 Elm street c)13 Erika street d)33 Maple Drive 28-Which is closest to Erik’s house?

a) the traffic lights b) the shopping center c) exit 75 d) a greenhouse C: Anna, perhaps the most popular broadcaster in the news media today, won the 1998 Broadcasting Award. She got her start in journalism as an editor at the Hollsville County Times in Missouri. When the newspaper went out of business, a colleague persuaded her to enter the field of broadcasting. She moved to Oregon to begin a master’s degree in broadcast journalism at Atlas University. Following graduation, she was able to begin her career as a local newscaster with WPSU-TV in Seattle, Washington, and rapidly advanced to national television. Noted for her quick wit and trenchant commentary, her name has since become synonymous with Good day, America! 29- What is the purpose of this announcement?

a) to invite people to the National convention of Broadcast Journalism b) to encourage college students to study broadcasting c) to recognize Anna’s accomplishments d) to advertise a job opening at the Hollsville Country Times

30-The expression “to become synonymous with” means

a) to be the same as b) to be the opposite of c) to be in sympathy with d) to be discharged from



"Say you want a revolution": A Call for Participatory Approach in EFL Educational System

Marzieh Rafiee (Corresponding author)

English Department, University of Isfahan, Iran E-mail: [email protected]

Mahbube Keihaniyan

Young Researchers and Elite Club, Najafabad Brach, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran E-mail: [email protected]

Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.112 Received: 07/01/2014 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.112 Accepted: 26/02/2014 Abstract This mixed-method study investigated the language teachers' opinions on the inclusion of the principles of Participatory Approach in language classroom settings in Iran. Applying both quantitative and qualitative approaches of data collection procedures, the study explored the language teachers' attitude, on the perceived importance and use of the principles of Participatory Approach in two settings of high schools and private institutes. The results indicated that although both groups of teachers perceived the importance of inclusion of this approach in language classrooms, language teachers working in schools encounter some insurmountable obstacles in their teaching context. The problems of inclusion of Participatory Approach in both settings were then discussed by the teachers and the solutions were offered. Implication for further research is also suggested. Keywords: Participatory Approach; Freirian Critical Pedagogy; Mixed Method Study; EFL Teachers; Language Teaching Context 1. Introduction

The struggle for democracy is the centerpiece for the struggle for liberation. Yet it is also clear that democracy has different meanings for different peoples throughout the world. For some, it is synonymous with capitalism, the propagation of acquisitiveness and greed, the barbaric practices of colonialism, and conceptually opposed to socialism. For others, it is a process of achieving equality of social justice for all peoples through popular sovereignty. Paulo Freire (1993, p. XI)

Rooted in the "free school" movement and "Frankfurt school" of social critique and "Marxian critique" that emerged during Cold War years, Critical Pedagogy called for an anti-establishment revolution in the schools which seemed to be looking for inspirations for some changes. Proponents of Critical Pedagogy endorse the students' ability of critical thinking about their educational environment; this way of thinking allows them to engage in a continuous process of "unlearning", "relearning", "evaluation" and "reflection" which help students take a constructive actions during language learning (Shor, 1980). The prime concern of Critical Pedagogy is with criticizing the schooling in capitalist societies. Meanwhile, it attempts to advocate more attention to awareness raising and rejection of violation and discrimination against people (Hall, 2000); a goal which was pursued in Participatory Approach to language teaching. Participatory Approach (henceforth PA), which was originated in the work of Paulo Freire in the late 1950s, developed a problem posing method in education. The approach is based on the belief that education plays a pivotal role in the development of learner' 'critical consciousness' towards their positions in the society, as well as their abilities for a social change. The core principles of PA, i.e. "people-centered and people-first" tenet, was firmly grounded in the belief that "education and knowledge have value only so far as they help people literate themselves for the social conditions that oppressed them" (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2011:171). Freire was the critic of what he called "banking" concept of education. He notes that this method of language teaching "transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts "to control thinking and action, leads men and women to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative power" (Freire, 1970, p. 77). An opposing attitude toward this model is problem posing, which involves the selection of real-life issues from the students' lives and engages the students in an open-ended process of problem solving (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2011). In recent years, considerable concern has been arisen over the issue of transformative approaches to education. (Anani Sarab, 2010). Annani Sarab (2010) argues that student-centered approaches to education have been emphasized by practitioners in the field but what we need is a change of focus in teacher training programs. Teachers are not equipped

ALLS 5(1):112-116, 2014 113 enough with the skills they need to enhance the self confidence of students to apply their own experience of community. A glance through the educational system in Iran shows that teachers are merely the followers and consumers of policies mandated by the authorities; an outside source which determines the instructions for teachers inside the cycle of language teaching (Aliakbari & Allahmoradi, 2012). What make the situation even more problematic are the reasons why student-teachers desire to be teachers. Freire describes teachers as "cultural workers" who are supposed to be productive to engage students in humanization. The approach of problem posing/problem solving suggested by Freire (1970, 1973) was intended to humanize the educational experiences of teachers and pupils. The question that looms over us is how we can change the view points of language teachers during their teaching training courses towards the principles of transformative approaches to education. To accomplish this goal, teachers' attitude towards the issue should be investigated. Although several attempts have been made to bring this issue to the foreground (Momenian & Shirazizadeh, 2009; Akbari, 2008, Ghahremani-Ghajar & Mirhosseini, 2005), there is still space for more research in this regard. Taking previous studies in the field as a starting point, the present study sets out to find answer to the following research questions:

1. What are the language teachers' (working in schools and institutes) attitudes towards the importance of applying the principles of Participatory Approach in the English Language courses?

2. What are the language teachers' (working in schools and institutes) attitudes towards the perceived use of applying the principles of Participatory Approach in the English Language courses?

3. What would be the probable obstacles of the inclusion of this approach in the context of language teaching? 2. Method In this study, data was gathered based on applying questionnaire and face-to-face interviews, in order to be sure about the integrity and quality of the inferences being made (Schreiber & Asner-Self, 2011). 2.1 Questionnaire Participants A total number of 84 male/female EFL high school and private institutes' teachers took part in this study. They range in age from 26-40 and their experience of teaching range from 10 to 24 year. They were required to fill out a questionnaire on the perceived importance and use of the principles of PA in schools and institutes. Table 1 offers detailed information of the sample chosen. Table 1. questionnaire participants

Gender Age Degree Teaching experience

Male 28 Female 56

Twenties 12 Thirties 42 Forties 24 Fifties 6

English Teaching 34 English Translation 33 English Literature 14 Linguistic 3

Less than 5 years 16 5-10 years 29 10-15 years 23 15-20 years 9 More than 20 7

Total 84

2.2 Interview Participants Participants were selected based on purposeful sampling. Open-ended and in-depth interviews were conducted with five teachers in this study. In order to select participants, three criteria were taken into consideration: (a) they voluntarily took part in this study; (b) they should have filled out the questionnaire before; (c) they should have had experience of teaching the English language at schools for at least five years. The detailed information on the participants in the interview is shown in Table 2. Table 2. Interview participants

No. Gender Age Degree Teaching Experience

1 2 3 4 5

Female Female Male Female Male

42 34 47 35 33

English Teaching English Teaching English Teaching English Translation English Translation

24 16 29 17 15

2.3 Data collection and analysis Being composed of two sections, the questionnaire (adopted from Larsen-Freeman, 2011) was designed to inquire information about the educational background and teaching experience of language teachers in one section, and their

ALLS 5(1):112-116, 2014 114 opinions about the perceived importance and perceived use of PA principles at schools and institutes. The instrument consists of 11 items on Liker scale of four and explores the perceived importance and use of principles of PA in language classrooms in schools and private institutes. The administration process was done both via email and by hand. A face-to-face interview, as a complementary data collection procedure, was conducted as well, to provide "an in-depth look at context, processes, and interactions" and to give a clear image of participants' attitude and perceptions. (Lodico, Spaulding & Voegtle, 2006, p. 282). The interviews were done in participants' first language, Persian, "thus removing concerns about the proficiency of the learner impacting the quality and quantity of the data provided" (Mackey and Gass, 2005 p. 174). The interview sessions were tape-recorded, transcribed and then back-translated into English. They were read and re-read many times by the researchers in order to find the pattern in the participants' speech. The results are presented in the following section. 3. Results and Discussion 3.1 Questionnaire The results of teachers' perception questionnaire show that the importance of employing the principles of PA has been perceived and ranked high by both groups of teachers, with the difference that in institutes, teachers perceived the importance more. The descriptive analysis of results is presented in Table 3.

Table 3. Descriptive analysis of perceived use of PA principles in both settings

As the table demonstrates, the mean score for both sets of teachers' opinions are quite the same. The results of the

responses private institutes' teachers gave to the same questionnaire found that the mean score of this group was higher,

compared to the school teachers' set, indicating that the probable use of PA principles in the institute classroom context

is higher. Table 4 shows the results of descriptive analysis of this group.

Table 4. Descriptive analysis of perceived use of PA principles in both settings

The following figure demonstrates the differences between these two sets in both settings.

Figure 1. perceived importance and use of PA in schools and institutes

ALLS 5(1):112-116, 2014 115 3.2 Interview

The answer to the third question was given by the analysis of participants' responses to the interviewer questions. The tape-recorded conversations with the language teachers provide us with further and deeper insight about the perceived importance and use of this method in language classrooms. Comparing to questionnaire results, the interviewees strongly had an agreement on the importance of the principles of PA in school contexts, while the use of these principles in the educational setting was argumentative among the teachers. There are three broad categories of obstacles teachers faced in educational system, which are summarized here:

3.2.1 The curriculum and syllabus

As one of the first problems teachers should handle with is the curriculum and syllabus they should follow and cover in the classroom. Being regarded as a widespread problem for language teachers in the classroom, covering all the components of syllabus gives teachers a little chance to work with other aspects of language. One of the basic components of PA is that the curriculum is not a predetermined product, but is built in a jointly-constructed and context-specific problem-posing process (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2011). There was groans and moans among teachers who complaints about the far-reaching contents of course materials whose basis was the old-fashioned theories of language learning. This point is clearly reflected in the words of interviewee 1, who has the experience of teaching for 24 years in schools:

I remember when I was a university student, over 20 years or so, our heads were complied with a bulk of methods of teaching which we were studying in the books. You know, there were GTM, Audiolingualism, Direct Method, Suggestopedia, and others. I know there are lots of other methods introduced in the field, which are more fruitful and practical, but our teaching still is influenced by those old-fashioned teaching methods. We are surrounded with a lot of "musts"! We must teach the course materials then we must evaluate our students based on some criterions. That's why we cannot improve!

3.2.2 The role and relationships of teachers and students

In critical pedagogy and more specifically in PA of teaching, students have a voice in the process of their own learning (Shor, 1996). They are actively involved in knowledge-construction and the education is experienced-centered (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2011). Fortunately because of the dominant effects of student-centered approaches of language teaching, teachers are experiencing a changed role in the educational setting. This is reflected in the following exert, quoted one of the teachers who had the experience of teaching in both schools and institute and compared the role of teachers in both contexts:

Institute teachers are trained in a way that they have a friendship with students, the way they have a role in the students' lives. This is so great, so great! I mean, if a teacher can remove herself/himself from the teacher-centered approaches and make a contact with students' interests, it would be so fruitful! It doesn't mean that school teachers are unable to do this! They can, but curriculum, to be honest, doesn't allow teachers do anything they want in the classroom!

3.2.3 Language learning facilities What were of concern for teachers were the course books and the curriculum, making them far away from the changes recently advised to be done in the language classrooms. Almost all the interviewees agree that we can give students some chance to be involved in the process of their language learning. One of the interviewee brings the example of those schools which are pioneer in this aspect:

In some special kinds of schools (private institutes, Shahed schools, Nemoone-mardomi Schools, etc) in which teachers are equipped with more facilities for teaching English, I think, teachers have more freedom to work on students' social and political beings! This is happening nowadays, although not ubiquitous! These teachers have more time to cover the syllabus and therefore they can work with other aspects of language!

4. Concluding remarks and implications

The present study aimed at investigation of EFL teachers' opinions of inclusion of PA principles in two settings of public schools and private institutes. The overall findings of the study demonstrated that employment of the principles of PA in language classrooms is greatly appreciated by language teachers in both settings, despite the fact that language teachers working in public schools have groaning and moaning about the obstacles preventing them to apply the principles in an effective and efficient way. Among the factors they mentioned for these obstacles in one-to-one interviews, they mentioned the tough curriculum and syllabus they should handle in the classrooms, the slow-changing role of teachers and language learners in the context, despite the growing interest in learner-centered approaches to language teaching and at last, but not least, lack of prerequisite facilities in public schools which would result in lack of time and motivation to work on other aspects of language not covered in the syllabus.

Findings of this piece of research might be of help to syllabus designers, curriculum planners, material developers and language teachers, at the top of this list, to take a sober look at the issues related to Critical Pedagogy, especially PA which is the results of applying principles of Critical Pedagogy to TESOL, and try to overcome the difficulties on the way of inclusion of PA in the context. More works need to be done on the inclusion of this approach in other context, such as academic context, and the opinion of language teachers, and the obstacles of facing those contexts could be

ALLS 5(1):112-116, 2014 116 explored. Besides, due to increasing tendency to work out the principles of Critical Pedagogy in Iranian EFL context (Anani Sarab, 2010; Sadeghi, 2008) other studies can work on broader issues in the politics of TEFL, such as additive rather than subtractive language learning, supporting multi-competence in English language use as opposed to enforcing native-speaker use and using non-native speakers as teachers (Giroux, 2011).

Reference Akbari, R. (2008). Transforming lives: introducing critical pedagogy into ELT classrooms. ELT Journal , 62 (3), 276-83. Aliakbari, M., & Allahmoradi, N. (2012). On Iranian School Teachers’ Perceptions. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy , 4 (1), 154-171. Annani-Sarab, M. (2010). Anani Sarab, M Practice Reading: A Foundation English Course for University Students, Book 2. Tehran: Shahid Beheshti University Press. Freire, P. (1973). Education for Critical Consciousness. New York: Seabury Press. Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the City. New York: Continuum . Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum/Herder and Herder; Middlesex, UK: Penguin. Ghahremani-Ghajar, S., & Mirhosseini, S. A. (2005). English class or speaking about everything class? Dialogue Journal Writing as a critical EFL literacy practice in an Iranian high school. Language, Culture and Curriculum,18 (3), 54-65. Giroux, H. (2011). On Critical Pedagogy. New York, NY: Continuum Press. Hall, G. (2000). Local Approaches to Critical Pedagogy: An investigation into the Dilemmas Raised by Critical Approaches to ELT . Linguistics Department, Lancaster University: CRILE Publications. Larseen-Freeman, D., & Andreson, M. (2011). Techniques and principles in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lodico, G. M., Spaulding, D. T., & Voegtle, K. H. Methods in Educational Reseach: From Theory to Practice. Mackey, A., & Gass, S. M. (2005). Second Language Reseach: Methodology and Design. London: LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS. Momenian, M., & Shirazizadeh, M. (2009). Putting Things Right: State-of-the-Art on Critical Pedagogy and Writing. MJAL , 1 (4), 223-243. Sadeghi, S. (2008). Critical Pedagogy in an EFL Teaching context :An ignis fatuus or an Alternative Approach? Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies , 6 (1), 277-295. Schreiber, J. B., & Asner-Self, K. (2011). Educational Research: The Interrelationship of Questions,Sampling, Design, and Analysis. United States of America: JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC. Shor, I. (1980). Critical Teaching and Everyday Life. Boston, Massachusetts: South End Press. Shor, I. (1996). When Students Have Power: Negotiating Authority in a Critical Pedagogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.



Declarative Sentence Pattern In “Laskar Pelangi” And “The Rainbow Troops”: A Translation Study Of Indonesian To

English

Heri Kuswoyo English Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities

Universitas Padjadjaran Jl. Raya Bandung-Sumedang Km.21 Jatinangor Sumedang



This study is entitled declarative sentence pattern in “Laskar Pelangi” and “The Rainbow Troops”: A Translation Study of Indonesian to English. In this study, the present writer discusses about the differences & similarities of declarative sentence between Indonesian novel and English translation novel. Further, the data were taken from Indonesian’s novel (Laskar Pelangi) as the source language and English translation Novel (The Rainbow Troops) as the Target language. In this study, the present writer employs Descriptive Analysis as the methodology and analyzes Indonesian and English declarative sentence, which is categorized into nominal, adjectival, prepositional, and numeral, transitive and intransitive. Then the writer applies Contrastive Analysis method to contrast the patterns. Finally, the present writer concludes that the similarities of declarative sentence patterns between Indonesian and English language found in two categories, those are transitive, and intransitive; however the differences ones found in the nominal, adjectival, prepositional, and numeral category. Keywords: Contrastive Study, Declarative sentence, Translation Novel 1. Introduction When we speak to others, we have the capacity to produce sounds that signify certain meanings. In another word, the sentences that we uttered whether express a statement, question, command or exclamation. It depends on the speaker’s mood. As Sneddon J.N (1996) states that there four moods recognized here are statements, questions, imperatives and exclamations. Thus, both speaker and hearer must understand what they speak and hear. Fromkin et.al (1984) in Nadar F.X (1996) adds that “to understand the nature of language we must understand the nature of this internalized, unconscious set of rules which is part of every grammar of every language”. Indeed In fact, the non- native speakers (NSS) still encounter difficulties in learning new language because they transfer their native language habit to the new language. According to Brown (2000), it is because of the interference of the first language system with the second language system. Based on the statement above, the writer tries to present a contrastive analysis of the two languages, Indonesian and English Especially on the declarative sentence in order to avoid mistransformation. Concerning the limitation of the problem of this study that is to analyze declarative sentence in the two languages by comparing the patterns, in this research the present writer states the problem as follow; What are the differences & similarities of declarative sentence between Indonesian and English translation novel’s “Laskar Pelangi " and " The Rainbow Troops” based on the Contrastive Analysis? 2. Contrastive Analysis As we studied that Contrastive Analysis is one of the methods that can be used for helping people who learn other language in finding some differences and similarities between source language and target language that usually led to some difficulties in learning process encountered by the learner. As Fisiak, J (1981) roughly defines “Contrastive Analysis is a sub discipline of linguistics that is deals with the comparison of two or more languages in order to determine both the differences and similarities that hold between them.” Then, the similar definition found in A Glossary of Applied Linguistics by Alan Davies (2005), he simply states that Contrastive Analysis makes comparison between Lx (source language) and Ly (target language). Based on the definitions above it would be said that Contrastive Analysis is a method used to contrast between two or more languages concerning their differences and similarities among the languages. Moreover most contrastive linguists have either explicitly or implicitly made use of translation as a means of establishing cross-linguistic relationships and in his book on contrastive analysis James, C. (1980) reach the conclusion that translation is the best basis of comparison. So, next the technique of translation equivalence is going to be used in this research. Refers to Newmark, P. (1988), translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written massage and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language. And another definition of translation is converting one language (SL) to another (TL) so that the TL could convey the intended message in SL. In other words, it is a process through which the translator decodes SL and encodes his understanding of the TL form. 3. Sentence According to Sneddon (1996) a Sentence expresses a statement, command, question, or exclamation. A sentence consists of one or more clauses, and usually has at least one subject and verb. In writing it begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark. This is in line with the definition of sentence in the Longman Dictionary of Grammar and Usage (1992), it states that a sentence is a group of words that makes sense because the words are constructed and arranged according to the grammatical rules for expressing statements, questions or commands. 3.1 Classification of sentence

ALLS 5(1):117-121, 2014 118 According to Sujatna (2007) there are two ways to classify sentences: based on the syntactic properties and the type of clauses. Concerning the syntactic properties, there are four types of sentences they are statement, question, imperative, and exclamations. As Sneddon J.N (1996) Points out statements are used when we give information. Statements are sometimes said to be in the declarative mood. Questions are used when we construct questions. Further, it has two types. They are yes no question and specific question. It ends with a question mark. Then, constructions in imperative mood are all addressed to someone with the intention that something is done. They are range from strong commands to requests, appeals and suggestions and the last is exclamation. It expresses the speaker’s feelings or attitude, usually in an emphatic way. Besides, Sujatna (2007) states that Sentences also may be classified according to type of clauses (simple sentence, compound sentence, complex sentence, and compound-complex sentence). 3.1.1 Simple sentence Simple sentence takes one clause. It takes one subject and one predicate. For example:

(1) I have a car (2) They are students

3.1.2 Compound sentence Compound sentence composes of at least two independent clauses, but no dependent clauses. Further, the clauses are joined by a comma a coordinating conjunction, a comma and a correlative conjunction, or a semicolon with no conjunction. For example:

(3) They finally read the book, or so I thought. (4) Mary understands Physics; she has studied it for years.

3.1.3 Complex sentence Complex sentence consists of one independent clause, and one or more dependent clauses. For example;

(5) We had to go inside when it started raining. (6) As long as it isn’t cold, it doesn’t matter if it rains

3.1.4 Compound-complex sentence Compound - complex sentences are made up of two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses. For example:

(7) The package arrived in the morning, but the courier left before I could check the contents. (8) Sir John A. Macdonald had a serious drinking problem; when sober, however, he could be a formidable foe in the House of Commons.

3.2 Declarative sentence In this study, the present writer just focuses on the declarative sentence. It sometimes called as indicative mood. Declarative Sentences are used to convey information or to make/form statements. As Sneddon J.N (1996) Points out Statements are used when we give information, express an opinion and so on. Statements are sometimes said to be in the declarative mood. They state a fact or an argument. They consist of a subject and a predicate. The subject may be a simple subject or a compound subject. The subject is placed in front of the verb. In other words, in a declarative sentence the subject and predicate have a normal word order. The sentence ends with a period (called a full stop in British English) in writing and a drop in pitch in speech. It may take the passive and negative form. In most English declarative sentences, the noun phrase that precedes the verb is the subject, and one that immediately follows the verb is a direct object. 3.3 Patterns of Indonesian declarative sentence The pattern of declarative sentences in Indonesian language based on Wahya & Wagiati (2011) in their Modul Pemahaman Wacana Bahasa Indonesia is as described in the following table: Table 1. the pattern of declarative sentences in Indonesian language

Pattern Example Types

S P Ayahnya /guru SMA S P (kata benda)

nomina

S P Gambar itu /bagus S P (Kata sifat)

adjektifal

S P Peserta penataran ini/empat puluh orang S P (Kata Bilangan)

numeral

S P Dia /didalam mobil S P (Kata depan)

prepositional

S P Anaknya/ sedang tidur S P

Verba Intransitive

S P O

S P O Pel S P O Ket S P O Pel

Mereka /sedang menyusun /karangan ilmiah S P O Dia /mengirimi /saya / surat S P O Pel Dia /memasukkan /pakaian /kedalam lemari S P O Ket Saya memilih SBY sebagai Presiden S P O Pel

Verba Mono Transitive Verba Di transitive Verba Complex transitive

3.4 Pattern of English Declarative Sentence In the English Syntax for beginners Sujatna, (2007) explaines that there are major clause patterns that indicate declarative sentence patterns, they are as follow, Table 2. the Pattern of English Declarative Sentence

Pattern Example Types

S V C She is a singer S V Cs(Noun phrase)

Nominal

ALLS 5(1):117-121, 2014 119 S V C She is clever

S V Cs(Adj phrase) Adjectiva

S V C He is the third S V Cs (noun phrase)

Numeral

S V Adverbial Sheila was at home S V Adverbial place

prepositional

S V He snores S V

Verba Intransitive

S V O

S V Oi Od

S VO Adverbial S V O Co

They bought a new car S V O/Noun Phrase They gave Amelia a golden globe S V O indirect O direct The doctor kept him in bed S V O Adverbial We consider john a leader S V O Co

Mono Transitive Verb clasue Di transitive verb clause Complex transitive verb clause

4. Method Regarding to the objective of this study; that is to describe the differences and similarities of declarative sentences in the two languages (English and Indonesian language), a qualitative research method applied. As Dowson, (2007) stated in Suparman et.al (2013) that one of the characteristic of qualitative research is that it deals with subjective human experience. Further, the present writer chose the Translation novel of Laskar Pelangi (a source language) and The Rainbow Troops (a target language) as the data resources. In addition, both of them are written by Andrea Hirata as the writer and Angie Kilbane, which are published in 2009. To collect the data, the present writer uses some steps. Firstly, finding the data sources, these are novels. Then, the novels are read repeatedly and regularly in order to get the understanding deeply about the content. Next, finding some simple sentences inside the novel related to the study that is declarative sentence and then they are marked by highlighter, categorizing the data based on the pattern used after that Re-checking the data, whether the data collected is really related to the topic or not and finally, analyzing them according to the problem statement. 5. Results and Discussion In this research, the writer uses the declarative sentences as the data which is categorized into six categories. They are nominal, adjectival, numeral, prepositional, transitive and intransitive. These sentences are representative from the patterns of declarative sentences of each category. Nominal Data 1

Analysis Laskar Pelangi Novel Analysis The Rainbow Troops Novel

SL Kami /bertetangga TL We /were/ neighbors (p.4)

Pattern S P Pattern S V Cs

Data 2 Analysis Laskar Pelangi Analysis The Rainbow Troops SL Dia/ maskot kelas kita(ix) TL He /was /our class mascot.(61) Pattern S P Pattern S V Cs

Data 3 Analysis Laskar Pelangi Analysis The Rainbow Troops SL Dia/ seorang perfeksionis (ix) TL He /was/ a perfectionist (61) Pattern S P Pattern S V Cs

From the analysis in the table above they reveal that the pattern both Nominal of Indonesia and English declarative sentence are totally different. Further, the nominal pattern of Indonesian declarative sentence is Subject + Predicate which is the Predicate is filled by bertetangga, Maskot kelas kita and seorang perfeksionis. In the contrary, the nominal pattern of English declarative sentence is S + V+ Cs (Subject Complement). In addition, Sujatna (2007) stated that the position of a subject complement can be filled by noun phrase and adjective phrase. Thus, based on the data above, the subject complements are filled by noun phrase such as neighbors, our class mascot and a perfectionist. Adjectival Data 1

Analysis Laskar Pelangi Analysis The Rainbow Troops

SL Mukanya/ lebar dan berbentuk kotak, rambutnya serupa landak.(ix)

TL His face /was /wide and box-shaped, and he had porcupine hair.(58)

Pattern S P Pattern S V Cs

Data 2 Analysis Laskar Pelangi Analysis The Rainbow Troops

ALLS 5(1):117-121, 2014 120 SL Bu Mus/ Geram dengan Korupsi yang

merajalela dinegeri ini. TL Bu Mus/ was /definitely furious about

the spending corruption in Indonesia. (59)

Pattern S P Pattern S V Cs Data 3


SL Kucai /sedikit tak beruntung TL Kucai /was/ rather unfortunate (58)

Pattern S P Pattern S V Cs Having analyzed the data, it shows that the pattern both adjectival of Indonesia and English declarative sentence are also totally different. Furthermore, the adjectival pattern of Indonesian declarative sentence is Subject + Predicate. In another word, it has the same pattern with nominal English declarative sentence. While, the adjectival pattern of English declarative sentence is S + V+ Cs (Subject Complement). The writer has already stated that subject Complement can be filed by Noun Phrase and adjective phrase. In this data, the Subject complement filled by adjective phrase, they are wide and box-shaped, and porcupine hair, definitely furious about the spending corruption in Indonesia and rather unfortunate. Prepositional Data 1

Analysis Laskar Pelangi Analysis The Rainbow Troops SL Keluarga Lintang/ berasal dari tanjung

kelumpang (2) TL Lintang’s family /was /from tanjong

kelumpang. Pattern S P Pattern S V Adverbial


SL Lintang /saat Kelas satu dulu (x) TL Lintang/ was /in the first grade(79) Pattern S P Pattern S V Adverbial


SL Guru-guru sederhana ini /berada dalam situasi genting (1)

TL Those humble teachers /were /in this nerve situation

Pattern S P Pattern S V Adverbial As can be seen in the data above, both prepositional pattern of English declarative also have different pattern. The prepositional pattern of Indonesian declarative sentence has S + P while the prepositional pattern of English declarative sentence little bit different. It is S + V + Adverbial. In addition, the adverbial here is filled by prepositional phrase such as from tanjong kelumpang, in the first grade and in this nerve situation. Numeral Data 1


SL Jumlah kertas /hanya sembilan TL There/ were/ only nine papers



SL Gila itu/ ada 44 macam TL There/ are/ 44 types of craziness



SL Baru /Sembilan orang (1) TL It /is /just nine people (2) Pattern S P Pattern S V Cs

The table above indicates that the Numeral pattern of Indonesian and English declarative sentence also has different patterns. The numeral pattern of Indonesian declarative sentence is Subject + Predicate which is the Predicate is filled by hanya Sembilan, ada 44 macam, and Sembilan orang. While, the numeral pattern of English declarative sentence is S + V+ Cs (Subject Complement). The data above also show that the Subject complements are filled by Noun phrase. Transitive Data 1


SL Beliau /hanya memerlukan /satu siswa lagi

TL He /only needed /one more student

Pattern S P O Pattern S V O

ALLS 5(1):117-121, 2014 121 Data 2


SL Aku /menuntut /pemungutan suara untuk ketua kelas baru (ix)

TL I /demand /a vote for a new class president(60)

Pattern S P O Pattern S V O Data 3

Analysis Laskar Pelangi Analysis The Rainbow Troops SL Ia/ menatap /Bu Mus (ix) TL He/ stared at/ Bu Mus(60) Pattern S P O Pattern S V O

As seen in datum (1), (2) and (3), the writer explores mono -transitive verb clauses. Having analyzed those data, it shows that the patterns both transitive verb clauses in Indonesian and English are similar. Further, Indonesian mono-Transitive verb clauses are patterned by S + P + O, while English are patterned by S + V+ O. thus, they have the same pattern. It can be comprehended below:

Ia menatap Bu Mus S P O S V O He stares at Bu Mus

The data show that Ia and He are as a Subject, then Menatap and Stars at are as a predicate or Verb and the last, Bu Mus is as an Object. It shows clearly that both patterns are similar. Intransitive Data 1

Analysis Laskar Pelangi Analysis The Rainbow Troops SL Ia /duduk /tenang (ix) TL Harun/ sat /calmly (63) Pattern S P Pel Pattern S P Adverbial

Datum 2 Analysis Laskar Pelangi Analysis The Rainbow Troops

SL Dia/ hanya tersenyum (ix) TL He /smiled (64) Pattern S P Pattern S V

Datum 3 Analysis Laskar Pelangi Analysis The Rainbow Troops SL Ayahnya /telah mati(x) TL His father/ died (75)

Pattern S P Pattern S V

According to the table above, the writer also finds that Intransitive verb in declarative clause in bahasa Indonesia and English are similar too. It can be proven by comprehending the both patterns. 6. Conclusion and Suggestion The comparison of the pattern of declarative sentences in both languages above shows there are differences and similarities among the patterns in the two languages. First, the difference found in the Pattern Subject-Complement in Indonesian language that is the declarative sentence patterns for nominal sentence, adjectival sentence, prepositional sentence, and numeral sentence, which is not found in English. In Indonesian, this pattern is acceptable as grammatical sentence; while in English is not, the pattern is considered as ungrammatical sentence, since the rule of English predicate of a sentence must be in verb phrase -auxiliary verbs, linking verbs, or action verbs. In contrast, there is no such pattern similar in Indonesian declarative sentences, since Indonesian has no verb “to be”. However, because of the influence of English, a sort of Indonesian copula verb i.e. adalah or ialah is often inserted between the subject and its complement. The present writer realized that this study still needs more extension. Since this study only discussed the small part of sentence that is declarative mood. As we know that actually it still has interrogative, imperative and exclamation mood. Thus, the present writer suggests another researcher to analyze them. References Aik, K. & Kam K. (1992). Longman Dictionary of Grammar and Usage. Singapore: Pearson Education Asia Pte Ltd. Brown, D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching. Fourth edition. U.S.A:Longman. Davies, Alan. (2005). A Glossary of Applied Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd. Fisiak, Jacek Ed. (1981). Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher. Oxford: Pergomon Press. Fromkin. Et.al. (1999). An Introduction to Language. Australia: Harcout Australia Pty Ltd. Hirata, Andrea. (2009). Laskar Pelangi. Yogyakarta: Bentang Pustaka. Kilbane, Angie. (2009). The Rainbow troops: Translation edition. Yogyakarta: Bentang Pustaka. James, Carl. (1980). Contrastive Analysis. Essex: Longman. Nandar, F.X. (1996). A comparative study of the Indonesian and English article. Humaniora III Newmark, Peter. (1988). Approaches to Translation. New York: Prentice Hall. Sneddon, J.N. (1996). Indonesian a Comprehensive Grammar.UK: Routledge. Sujatna. (2007). English Syntax for Beginners. Bandung: Uvula Press. Suparman et. al. (2013). Computer-aided translation teaching. Presented in Conaplin 6 International conference on applied linguistics. Bandung: Balai Bahasa Univeritas Pendidikan Indonesia. Wahya & Wagiati. (2011). Modul Pemahan Wacana Bahasa Indonesia. Materi matrikulasi pascasarjana fakultas sastra.Bandung:Universitas padjadjaran.



Translation of the Holy Quran: A Call for Standardization

Ahmad Mustafa Halimah

Department of English Language & Literature College of Arts, King Faisal University

P. O. Box 1759, AlAhsa 31982 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia


Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.122 Received: 02/01/2014 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.122 Accepted: 28/02/2014 Abstract The recent increase in the number of English translations of the Quran has led to problematic misrepresentations, misinterpretations and even textual discrepancies in the translations of a number of Islamic concepts, principles and norms. This paper is an attempt to evaluate five different English versions of the translation of the Quran using concepts, principles and norms as parameters for discussion and analysis. Results of discussion and analysis of the samples used in this paper have indicated that there is an un urgent need for a mechanism that will help using the formation of a standardised version of an explanatory translation of the meanings of the Quran that is authoritative in form and content to be used all over the English Speaking world. To achieve this objective, a list of suggestions and recommendations have been made for use by those in authority and for those who are interested in carrying out further research in this field. Keywords: Quran, translation, interpretative, authoritative, misrepresentation, standardization 1. Introduction Interest in the translation of the Quran has grown steadily since the first translation rendered into English by Alexander Ross in 1649, followed by the translations of George Sales in 1734, J. M . Rodwell in 1861, M. Pickthall in 1930 and then by A. Y Ali in 1934. (Al- Shabab, 2008, 2012; Mustafa, 2011). This paper focuses on five translations selected from a corpus of translations made in early 20th century onwards, mainly translations of Ali, A Y (1934,1977) An Indian Muslim, Arberry, A. J (1955, 1988) an English Christian, Dawood, N.J. (1956,1974) an Arab Iraqi Jew, Abdel-Haleem, M (2004,2010) an Arab Egyptian Muslim, Yuksel. E, Al-Shaiban L and Schult-Nafeh (2007,2010) A Turkish Kurdish Muslim. Although there have been several studies of the translation of the Quran (Versteegh, 1991, Bobzin 1993, Abdul-Raof, 2001a, 2005, AlShabab, 2008, 2012, Mustafa, 2011), the issue of standardising the translation of the Quran into English has not been raised in terms of finding a profiling mechanism that translators can use in translating conceptual premises. This article will question the worthiness of having multiple translations of the Quran and will argue the case for a standardised translation of the Quran.

It is unfortunate that there is now a multitude of Quranic Translations being used at the moment. This is bound to give rise to distorted conceptions and perceptions and even misunderstanding of the original text by Muslims or non-Muslims. The translation of the Bible, for example, followed a certain progression manner from an initial diversity of translations to the emergence of a fixed authoritative text (Long, 2001, Serban, 2005). This authoritative text of the Bible seems to have successfully unified Christians around one single reference version in case of dispute over principal concepts or issues in Christianity as a religion of over more than a billion people. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a single standardised English Translation of the Quran to be used by all or at least by the majority of English Speaking Muslims. 2. Theoretical Considerations Translation strategies throughout history could be dichotomised as being one of each of the following five pairs: literal vs. free, formal correspondence vs. dynamic equivalence, foreignising vs. domesticating, direct translation vs. indirect translation, and communicative vs. semantic translation. Ultimately it has been argued that “full authenticity and communicative clarity cannot both be achieved’ (Kirk, 2005, p99) in religious texts, as is the case in translating the Quran, as the source and target languages and cultures are very different. A choice then must be made between meeting the linguistic and cultural expectations of the Target Language (TL) reader and satisfying his/her taste/ and on one hand and violating the main theological concepts of the text on the other.

ALLS 5(1):122-133, 2014 123 A suitable approach to looking into the problems arising from the dispersions of so many translations of the Quran is a hermeneutic approach as this would give us the ability to compare how translators use their exegetical tools for understanding and interpretation be they linguistic, cultural, conceptual, psychological, theological or spiritual. Hermeneutic approaches have been used in translation studies for a very long time. Hermans (2011, 130) presents a detailed overview of hermeneutics chronologically from the days of the ancient Greek god Hermes who used to translate the messages between the gods and the mortals. In other words, translation could be looked at as an act of interpretation based on the hermeneutic framework. It means to ‘to interpret, explain, narrate, clarify, translate.’ Al-Shabab (1996, 2008) has extensively argued that translation is merely an ‘an interpretative (hermeneutic) behaviour’. He also suggests that this interpretive nature of translation is bound to give rise to ‘differences’ in translation (Al-Shabbab, 1998). Delisle, Jean (1988:53-6) focuses on the cognitive element in the translation process as he views it as a heuristic process of critical discourse analysis which goes through three stages: comprehension of the signs of the Source Text, reformulation of the concepts of the source utterances by means of the signifiers of another languages and then the verification stage which involves a comparison between the original and its translation. O’Donnell (2004, p. 165) also states that ‘every translation is an interpretation, and therefore, even when making a quick initial translation, the exegete is forced to make interpretative decisions’. He concludes that through the use of interpretative translation one can communicate the overall understanding message of a sacred text without resorting to the use of ‘verse –by-verse comments’. Serban (2005) argues that ‘archaising’ and ‘modernising’ can be used as stylistic strategies in translating religious texts as they can serve different purposes and different target audience. The former highlights the historical association and mystery of the religious expression and the latter uses the contemporary language. As for Salama-Carr, M (2011, p.146), translation is seen as ‘a dynamic process of comprehension and re-expression of ideas’. In the translation of the Quran in particular, Abdel Haleem (2011, p.67) states that we should ‘aim for an explanatory translation of the meaning. The oddities we have in many English translations result from excessive literalism and adherence to the syntactical and stylistic peculiarities for the Arabic language and the language of the Quran, which is very concise, idiomatic, figurative and elliptic’. Having made those references and being a practitioner interested mainly in the translation product of the Quran, I am tempted to adopt a product interpretive approach to translation loaded with constraints of the theological norms of the faith carried in the text. In other words, any interpretative translation of the meanings of the Quran is accepted if it does not violate any of the principal theological concepts or norms of the faith and it is rejected if it does. To achieve such acceptable version of the Quran in English, the translated text should achieve maximum approximation in equivalence and the communicative purpose of the text should be conveyed in an appropriate style without violating any theological concepts, principles or norms held by the faith. A Translation of this standard should obviously endeavour to transfer into English the linguistic, social, cultural and religious associations and connotations of the original text, in addition to its rhythmic and rhyming impact on the TL reader or receptor, if possible. 3. The scope of this study Guided by the theoretical background of the study, the major aim of this article is to investigate a number of problems, difficulties and pitfalls the translators of the Holy Quran tend to face when translating Quranic concepts that lack counterparts in the English language and culture. This will be achieved by using excerpts taken from the following five different English versions of the Quran as they represent samples of translations made by different translators who belong to different periods of time and linguistic, cultural, religious, theological and even ideological backgrounds. This diversity in background is bound to have had some repercussions on their translations. These translations are:

1. Ali, A Y (1934,1977) An Indian Muslim 2. Arberry, A. J (1955, 1988) an English Christian 3. Dawood, N.J. (1956,1974) an Arab Iraqi Jew. 4. Abdel-Haleem, M (2004) an Arab Egyptian Muslim. 5. Yuksel. E, Al-Shaiban L and Schult-Nafeh (2007,2010) A Turkish Kurdish Muslim

It is hoped that this study will provide useful information for English Speaking Muslims and non-Muslims interested in reading the meanings of the Quran in English and for academic institutions and translators with regards to the following:

A. The need to establish one single Authority which would standardise and authorise one single translation of the Quran.

B. Any translation of the Quran should presuppose its importance for the community of faith, for those who hold the canonical treatment of the text as authoritative for faith and practice. (i.e. Arab Muslims in the main)

C. Guiding Quran Translators to dictionarising and standardising the translation of the theological concepts and principles that lack counterparts in the Target Language.

ALLS 5(1):122-133, 2014 124 This study does not, however, aim at comparing source texts with translated texts comprehensively, but rather comparing different translations of the same text in terms of degree of deviation from the normative understandings and interpretations of the text in question. It is not considered to be an exhaustive study but rather an endeavour to draw attention to the phenomenon of translating the Quran without a necessity. 4. The Quran as Central Text It seems that every new Quranic translation has its own explanation and justification for its appearance. It tries to position itself as the fulfilment of what the Source Language (SL), Arabic really meant to express. Ali’s version (1934) claims that his translation came as a result of poor translations made by scholars such as George sale’s (1734), J. M. Rodwell (1861) E.H Palmer’s (1876) and an urgent need and demand for a translation made by a Muslim scholar. The importance of the English language and its impact in the world was an impetus to spread the thought and intellect of the Quran to the whole world. He also claims that although Pickthall was an English Muslim and a man of literary standing, his translation was ‘almost literal’ and lacked sufficient notes to elucidate the text. That is why he took up this project and decided to make up for all the demerits and shortcomings the translations of his predecessors suffered from. Arberry’s version (1955) seems to have concentrated on improving the performance of his predecessors in achieving the ‘the sublime rhetoric of the Arabic Quran. He emphasises the rhythmic product of the translation more than the message itself. This unbalanced emphasis may have unintentionally made him commit some principal errors in the translation of certain vital Islamic concepts (see below for more details). For him the sounds and the rhythmic effect of the verse are of paramount importance, since they could enable the English reader to enjoy the same emotive and psychological experiences enjoyed by the Arabic reader. Dawood’s version (1956) claims to have presented the modern reader with an intelligible version of the Quran in contemporary English in spite of the fact that he abandons the traditional arrangement of the chronological order of the Suras or chapters but rather follows a more biblical and poetic arrangement, which he claims is intended for the ‘uninitiated reader who is often put off by such mundane chapters as the ‘cow’ or the ‘Table’ which are traditionally placed at the beginning of the book. This irresponsible attitude towards the sacredness of the form and content of the original text seems to have spilled over and to have been negatively reflected in his translation of a number of Islamic concepts as will be explained below. Abdel Haleem’s version (2004) is another attempt made by an Arab Muslim to make the Quran accessible to everyone who speaks English, Muslim or otherwise, claiming that it is unlike previous works in the sense that it is more accurate, clearer and easier to read. However, is accuracy or clarity justifiable when it causes mistranslation or misinterpretation of main concepts and canons of faith? As for the translation of Yuksel. E, Al-Shaiban L and Schult-Nafeh (2007,2010), it is they claim a reformist translation in the sense that it rejects the Hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad (pbbuh) as a source of religious law and guidance in understanding and interpreting the message of Islam revealed in the Quran. This is reflected in their approach to the translation of the meanings of the Quran. No matter what the motives for the translations may have been, any translation of the Quran should presuppose its importance for the community of faith, for those who hold the canonical treatment of the text as authoritative for faith and practice. In addition, it is imperative that the translator’s own underlying ideological and theological beliefs be prevented from interfering not only in the process of translation but from misinterpreting and construing the rendered text. The discussion below will reflect this state of affairs. 4.1 From a legislative perspective Needless to say, the most authoritative source of the Islamic law is the Quran. It is the Word of Allah revealed to Muhammad (p.b.b.u.h) through Angel Gabriel, over a period of twenty-three years. Since it was revealed to Muhammad (p.b.b.u.h), the Last Messenger of Allah (p.b.b.u.h), and as no corruption of whatever kind has ever occurred to it, neither in its content nor in its form it stands as proof that it has been guarded by Allah who Himself sent it down to all Mankind and undertaken to keep it as pure as when it was revealed. Allah (SW) said:

كر وإنا لھ لحافظون " [سورة الحجر:" لنا الذ ]9إنا نحن نز“We have, without doubt, sent down the Message; and We will assuredly guard it (from corruption).” (S.15, A.9)

Therefore, the Quran is considered not only an absolute authority in Islam but it is also viewed as the most sacred, most valuable and most dear to Muslims. Undoubtedly, the single most important text in Islam is the Quran itself. So central is the Quran to the Arabic and Islamic culture as a whole that scarcely any account of the latter can afford to overlook the importance and impact of the Quran. It is vital to recognise that the majority of English speaking non-Muslims in general and Muslims in particular read the Quran as an authoritative religious text, a practical guide to life and not as literary pieces of writing. Therefore, no translation could afford an error in translating principal theological concepts as it might backfire theologically and ideologically.

ALLS 5(1):122-133, 2014 125 The Quran is a sacred revelation from Allah the Almighty to Prophet Muhammad (PBBUH). It is divine in source and human in practice. Its translation should reflect these two important features. 4.2 From a linguistic/stylistic perspective Hatim and Mason (1990:69) define genre as “conventionalised forms of texts” which reflect the functions and goals involved in particular social occasions as well as the purposes of the participants in them”. However more subjective, less institutionalised and much vaguer classifications seem to have been used to describe texts as wholes or parts of them such as ‘narrative’, ‘expository’, ‘argumentative’ and ‘instructional’ texts (Baker, 2011). As for the genre of the Quran, Arberry (1988, px) describes the style of the Quran as ‘neither prose nor poetry, but a unique fusion of both.’ In this respect, I would say that one of the prodigies of the Quran is its matchless discourse and rhetorical style. The style of the Quran doesn’t belong to any type of literary texts or genres, be it poetry, prose, drama or any other narrative style but it has its own miraculous and idiosyncratic style which would make one feel that they are simultaneously in front of a multi-type text; a narrative text on one occasion, a descriptive dialogue on another and an impressive text on a different occasion; nevertheless the Quran is neither of them when it is looked at as one complete distinctive style that has its own eloquence, diction, intensity and variety of expressions. In other words, the style of the Quran is like no other style as it combines miraculous expressive rhetoric and discourse on the one hand and prodigious past and unseen future events for each of which there is evidence in the Quran on the other hand. And this is what makes the Quranic text a potential trap for translators to fall in. 5. The Translation of the Quran Since the revelation of the Holy Quran in 612AD, scholars from different fields have been trying to solve the controversy of translatability of the Quran. Orthodox Muslim scholars claim that since the Quran is the Word of Allah, it is ‘untranslatable’; whereas a number of Muslim and non-Muslim scholars claim the opposite. No doubt at all, the meanings and/or ‘tafseer’ –interpretation- of the Quran has been translated into many different languages such as Persian, Turkish, Urdu, French, German, English and many others. What concerns us here is the English versions of the Quran ‘Tafseer’ being widely spread all over the world. The Quran has been transferred into English by scholars who speak different languages, belong to different religions and hold different ideological and theological views. This has definitely, whether consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally influenced the product of its translation. Although these scholars were apparently competent in Arabic, the language of the Quran, they lacked the ability not only to have the ‘feel and spirit’ of the Quranic word, but also to recognise the linguistic and cultural dimensions of it. 6. Discussion of Sample Comparisons To investigate the issue more profoundly, an attempt will be made to discuss it from different perspectives. Sample comparisons will be used to verify that differences in translating the Quranic original text have led to misinterpretations and misconceptions of a number of Islamic concepts and principles. Examples from each version are given and discussed mainly from a linguistic and cultural perspective with occasional reference to rhetorical, psychological and melodic features. 6.1 The Translations of the Quran from a linguistic perspective The following example gives us material through which to look at the significance of the ‘lexical meaning of a word’ and the importance of ‘word order’ as one of the major grammatical categories of difficulties translators encounter in translation. For instance, unlike English, Arabic doesn’t tend to have a fixed word order because it has an elaborated case inflection and due to different stylistic variations (Baker, 2011). A change in ‘word order’ may cause both message incoherence and a theological disorientation. Example Passage 1: Quran (24:2)

)2"الزانیة والزاني فاجلدوا كل واحد منھما مائة جلدة" (سورة النور: آیة ‘alzaniyatu wa alzani fajlidu kul wahidin minhuma maata jalda’

Yusuf Ali (1934) Arberry(1955) Dawood (1956) Abdel Haleem (2004) Yuksel etal (2007)

The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, - flog each of them with a hundred stripes.

The fornicatress and fornicator- scourge each one of them a hundred stripes.

The adulterer and the adulteress shall each be given a hundred lashes.

Strike the adulteress and the adulterer one hundred times.

The adulteress and the adulterer, you shall lash each of them one hundred lashes.

ALLS 5(1):122-133, 2014 126 Discussion Although the above example is void of any metaphor, the translators seem to have made serious mistakes as a result of their inability not only to find the right meaningful equivalent of the word but to also understand the significance of the word order in the Quran as a whole. At the word level, the Arabic verb ‘fajlidu’ has been translated by them as ‘flog’, ‘scourge’ ‘give a lash’, ‘strike’ and ‘lash’ respectively. The four different translation versions of the Arabic verb ‘fajlidu’ show that it has no absolute conceptual equivalent in English. To be able to choose the most appropriate equivalent in terms of its semantic connotations, conceptual associations and theological interpretations, ten native speakers of English were asked to rank these words along with the verb ‘whip’ from 1 to 5 as number (1) indicates the highest degree of ‘beating’ (i.e. physical harm and severity) and number 5 is the lowest degree of ‘beating’. Looking at the table below, we can see that 9 out of 10 native speakers of English agreed that the verb ‘flog’ carries the strongest connotation of ‘beating’, and 9 out of 10 agreed that the verb ‘lash’ would give the mildest connotation of ‘beating’, whereas 8 out of 10 agreed that the verb ‘scourge’ would give a weak connotation of ‘beating’. As for the verb ‘strike’, 7 out of 10 agreed that it would give a rather weak connotation of ‘beating’. Respondents seemed to be indecisive about the verb ‘whip’ as they split in opinion into 4 indicating strong connotations and 4 indicating weak connotations and 2 out of 10 said it could give a mild connotation. This could be a reason as to why the translators avoided using it.

Semantic connotations of the ‘beating’ verbs as being ‘Strong’, ‘Mild’ ‘Weak’

S M W

Words 1 2 3 4 5 Total

Flog 7 2 1 10

Lash 1 7 2 10

Scourge 1 1 1 7 10

Strike 1 1 1 3 4 10

Whip 4 2 4 10

They could be semantically ranked as follows:

1. Flog with a hundred stripes> strongest connotations (Ali’s) 2. Give a hundred lashes> mild connotations (Dawood’s)

Lash one hundred lashes> mild connotations (Yuksel’s) 3. Scourge with a hundred stripes> weak connotation (Arberry’s) 4. Strike one hundred times>weak connotation (Abdel Haleem’s) 5. Whip one hundred times>indecisive connotation (not used)

The semantic connotations of the Arabic verb ‘fajlidu’ seems to prefer the verb ‘lash’ to the others as the whole idea behind this kind of punishment is not to physically cause severe pain to the sinful but rather to psychologically and morally humiliate him or her and make him or her suffer and repent. This is supported by the way the ‘lashing’ is carried out mainly on the back of the sinner avoiding sensitive areas of the body, which should be mildly done, neither severely nor lightly, taking into account certain legislative constraints such as the main purpose of applying the ‘lashing’, the instrument used (i.e. type and nature of the whip), how to use the ‘whip’ (i.e. the position and movement of the arm used to lash the sinful). Therefore, I would standardise it by using the verb ‘lash’ as its semantic connotations, conceptual associations, theological interpretations, and the spirit of Islam tend to determine this choice. As far as the word order is concerned, it is very important to note that although Arabic unlike English is a highly inflected language and one can manipulate the word order in Arabic more flexibly, one cannot manipulate –in most cases-the word order followed in the Quran because it has its own significance. In the above example, we can see that Dawood has violated a philosophical and religious principle in Islam by putting in his translation of ‘ azzaniyatu wa azzani’ – the male before the female. It is the only place in the Quran that the female is mentioned before the male. It is to add that it is the woman who tends to be responsible when an illegal sexual intercourse takes place whether before or after marriage. If the sexual intercourse took place without the prior consent of the woman, then the whole act would not be called an ‘adultery’ or ‘fornication’, but rather ‘rape’. Therefore, the translator should pay a special attention to such implications for the translation of word order in Arabic and not to be deceived by certain norms of the language. One more example in this respect will reinforce the need to standardise certain terms and concepts in the translation of the Quran as such unnecessary differences in translation tend to cause not only misinterpretations but also misconceptions of Islam as a religion or ‘way of life’.

ALLS 5(1):122-133, 2014 127 Example Passage 2: Quran (80:33-36)

ة * یوم یفر المرء من أخیھ * وأمھ وأبیھ * وصاحبتھ وبنیھ * )" "" اخ (36-80:33) ( فإذا جاءت الص ‘fa iza jaat issakha, Yuma yafiru lmaro min akheeh , wa umihi wa abeeh, wa sahibatihi wa baneeh’

Yusuf Ali (1934) Arberry(1955) Dawood (1956) Abdel Haleem (2004) Yuksel etal(2007)

“At length, when there comes the Deafening Noise, that day shall a man flee from his own brother, and from his mother and his father, and from his wife and his children,”

“And when the blast shall sound, upon the day when a man shall flee from his brother, his mother, his father, his consort, his sons,”

“But when the dread blast is sounded, on that day each man will forsake his brother, his mother and his father, his wife and his children;”

When the Deafening Blast comes _ the Day man will flee from his own brother, his mother, his father, his wife, his children: each of them will be absorbed in concerns of their own on that Day_.

“So when the screaming shout comes, the day when a person will run from his brother. His mother and father. His mate and children.”

Variations in translating the above passage have evidently given rise to problems in rendering the right equivalence, achieving the communicative purpose of the message and failing to achieve any degree of the stylistic features expressed in the verse. The wrongly chosen words for ‘wa sahebatehi wa baneeh’ ‘wife/consort/mate’ and ‘children/sons’ respectively tend to cause misrepresentation of what is really meant in the Arabic text. As for the word ‘sahibatihi’, Arberry and Yuksel etal. have wrongly translated it as the concept in Arabic means a ‘wife’ whereas the propositional meanings of the words ’consort’ or ‘mate’ don’t really mean a ‘wife’ but they could have multiple meanings as follows: Consort: partner, companion, husband, wife, comrade, Mate: companion, comrade, fellow, friend, hubby, husband, masculine, associate, Furthermore, Arberry seems to misunderstand the meaning of ‘baneehi’ which simply means children, both boys and girls, not only sons. The above brief discussion leads us to confirm our need for standardising such terms or concepts so that one single message rather than a double or multifaceted message is retranslated into to English. 6.2 The Translations of the Quran from a cultural perspective One of the major difficulties translators encounter in translating religious texts is the translation of theological concepts that lack a counterpart in the target language. This could be due to the problem of cross-cultural interpretations. The following example illustrates the nature of the problem that faced the afore-mentioned translators of the Quran when they failed to capture the theological dimension and cultural and social connotations of the concept of ‘adultery’ in Islam. Example Passage 3: Quran (17:32)

)32"وال تقربوا الزنى أنھ كان فاحشة وساء سبیال" (سورة اإلسراء: آیة ‘wa la taqrabu azzina inahu kana faheshatan wa saa sabeela’

Yusuf Ali (1934) Arberry (1955) Dawood (1956) Abdel Haleem (2004) Yuksel etal(2007)

Nor come nigh to adultery; for it is a shameful (deed) and an evil, opening the road (to other evils)

“And approach not fornication; surely it is an indecency, and evil as a way”

“You shall not commit adultery, for it is foul and indecent”

And do not go anywhere near adultery: it is an outrage, and an evil path.

“Do not go near adultery, for it is a sin and an evil path” ura17:32)

Discussion Unfortunately, the five versions clearly violate the Islamic concept of ‘adultery’. Ali’s Dawood’s , Abdel Haleem’s, Yuksel etal’s versions would mean to an English reader that it is prohibited to practise illegal sex only after marriage; whereas Arberry’s version would mean that it is prohibited to practise illegal sex only before marriage. According to western culture, it is socially and culturally acceptable to practise sex before marriage but not after marriage. It seems that their English versions have given a much distorted picture of the Islamic principle which considers sexual intercourse outside of wedlock strictly prohibited, whether before or after marriage.

ALLS 5(1):122-133, 2014 128 As an alternative and standardised equivalent of the concept of ‘Azzina’, we can suggest the following unit of expression ‘adultery or fornication’ as it would cover all meanings implied by the Arabic word. Furthermore, there is a substantial number of theologically culture-specific concepts like (‘taqwa= god-fearing, zikr=mentioning of God, assabr=patience, etc…) which require some kind of experiencing on the part of both the translator and the target reader to be able to appreciate the meaning and purpose of the message implied in the translated verse and this state of lack of experiencing has been a serious cause for misinterpretation, mistranslation and consequently misconception of the religious practice of the Islamic concepts. Let’s take the following example for our discussion of the question under investigation: Example Passage 4: Quran (7:26)

)26"ولباس التقوى ذلك خیر" (سورة األعراف:‘Wa leebasu attaqwa zalika khair’


But the raiment of righteousness,- that is the best.

And the garment of godfearing- that is better.

But the finest of all these is piety.

The garment of God-consciousness is the best of all garments_

And the garment of awareness is the best.

Discussion Looking at the above versions of the translation of a short part of a verse, one can realize that the differences in the translation have caused linguistic and conceptual mistranslation and even misinterpretation of the Islamic concept in the original text. At the linguistic level, Arberry and Yuksel use the positive connector ‘and’ whereas Ali and Dawood use the negative coordinator ‘but’ (‘but’ is the right meaning here’. Abdel Haleem uses ‘zero connector’ which causes some kind of serious loss in his translation. At the conceptual level, the concept of ‘taqwa’ is represented by using different terms for rendering it. Being mainly concerned with concepts here, we could elaborate a bit more about translating technical terms such as ‘taqwa’ to assert the repercussions of having different translations of the theological concepts in the Quran. The literal meaning of the word ‘taqwa’, which relates to ‘godfearing, is common knowledge mainly among Arab Muslim. The problem appears when we encounter it as a technical term repeated 84 times in the Quran, as a ‘verb’ and 9 times as a ‘noun’. In either case, it tends to have its own theological but contextually oriented meaning. The above translators seem to have come up with five different translations of this technical term. The most unsatisfactory translation is that of Abdel Haleem’s and Yuksel etal’s because they used neutral terms without any religious sense and went too far in their misinterpretation of the word ‘taqwa’ in terms of its contextual and theological meaning, whereas the other three could have come up with one single term as an approximate equivalent to the theological meaning of ‘ataqwa’ or may have attempted to naturalize it as ‘taqwa’ (with italics, bold type, or any other kind ) and then explain it in more detail in a footnote. This technical term is very commonly used among Muslims, especially Arab Muslims and as it has so many contextually constrained meanings, and in the case of the technical term ‘taqwa’, the translator could make his translation as realistically understood as possible by collecting sufficient information about it but it would nevertheless be short of experiencing the concept of ‘tqawa’ by his readers. The following is just a short list of English words that could be used to transfer the concept of ‘’taqwa’’ both as a noun and a verb:

A. God fearing / to fear God or to fear Allah (i.e. to do what brings you closer to Allah and His mercy and to avoid disobeying His orders in fear of His punishment)

B. Righteousness (to do what is right and to avoid doing what is wrong) with God fearing in mind. C. Piety D. Piousness E. Devotion F. Religiosity G. Religiousness

As a matter of fact, such theologically and culturally loaded concepts will always be difficult and problematic for the translator and his or her readers because they tend to lack any basis for that concept in their experiences due to belonging to different languages, cultures and even religions. For the translator to be able to translate and his or her readers to grasp and appreciate the translation of such concepts, they both need to have directly experienced the essential meaning and purpose of such concept as ‘taqwa’.

ALLS 5(1):122-133, 2014 129 Example Passage 5: Quran (33:35)

كثیرا والذاكرات أعد هللا لھم مغفرة وأجرا عظیما" (سورة األحزاب: )35" والذاكرین هللا‘Wa adhikreena Allah katheeran wa adhakirat a’ada Allahu lahum maghfiratan wa ajran a’zima’


For men and women who engage much in God’s praise,-for them has God prepared forgiveness and great reward.

men and women who remember God oft-for them God has prepared forgiveness and a mighty wage.

and ever mindful of Allah-on these, both men and women, Allah will bestow forgiveness and a rich reward.

men and women who remember God often_ God has prepared forgiveness and a rich reward.

and the men who commemorate God frequently, and the commemorating women; God has prepared for them a forgiveness and a great recompense.

Discussion Like that of the above, the concept of dhikr or zikr (ذكر) tends to cause a problem as a theological and technical term because it doesn’t have a counterpart in English. The literal, theological and experiential meaning of the word dhikr or zikr (ذكر) denotes a ‘remembering’, ‘glorifying’, and ‘praising exercise’ repeatedly done without more or less any time or space constraints. Looking at Yuksel etal.’s, the word ‘commemorate’ sounds too ‘memorial’ and limited to a certain contextualised time and space. It also has the connotation of remembering someone/ something that has passed away/gone by, by means of a physical object (monument) or act (moments of silence), which is in odd with Islamic practice, and could be sought as a justification for use of pictures and symbols for worship?. Mentioning ‘often’ is not enough! Dawood’s word ‘mindful’ is not sufficient either because it doesn’t indicate engagement in praising God! Arberry’s word ‘remember’ sounds less problematic whereas Ali’s descriptive paraphrase of ‘who engage much in God’s praise,’ seems to approximately encompass what is meant by the Arabic concept. The problem of translating a concept like that doesn’t end here but it does only when the alternative English equivalent helps both the translator and the reader to grasp and appreciate the experiential meaning of the concept. To do so, they could look at the concept from a holistic perspective where they could conceptualise, formulate and articulate the concept verbally and even physically in case of performing optional prayers or raising one’s hands in ‘invocation’ or ‘supplication’. The differences in the use of the time adverb as in ‘much’, ‘often’, ‘ever’ ‘much’ and ‘frequently’ are also bound to cause confusion to the reader because each version seems to specify the ‘howmuchness/quantity of ‘dhikr or zikr (ذكر), which is not really appropriate because it is not specificed but only by the generic term ‘khatheeran’ which literally means ‘very much’. Thus in the case of our ‘adhakireena Allah katheern wa adhakirat’, Ali’s translation could be used as a standardized translation because it entails the spiritual and physical meanings of the Arabic concept and a reference to the quantity of ‘dhikr or zikr (ذكر) or a naturalization of the terms could be used with an explanatory footnote. Think about the following list of potential equivalent options:

For men and women who engage much in God’s praise. For men and women who remember God very much. For men and women who are always mindful of Allah.

For men and women who make a lot of mention of God. For men and women who make dhikr of Allah whenever possible. For men and women who make many praising exercises of God. For men and women who exercise the praise of God often? For men and women who always remember God in supplication For men and women who very often remember God in invocation.

ALLS 5(1):122-133, 2014 130 It is quite important to point out here that differences in conceptual translation cause not only misconception of Islam and its main principles, but also deprive the translated text of its Arabic original psychological effect as ‘The effect of the Quran on Arabic was dramatic, profound, and lasting, to an extent unknown in any other language’ (Abdel Haleem, 2011, p62). The problem of translating a concept like this is also applicable to the rhymingness and rhythemicness carried by the word, the phrase and the whole verse in the Quran which the English versions of the Quran lack most. Marmaduke Pickthall, who translated the Quran in 1930 described the book as ‘that inimitable symphony the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy’ Ali (1977, xv) 7. A Proposed Standardised Version of the Translated Texts of the Quran Having discussed samples from five versions of translated texts of the Quran and realized that their differences in the translation have given rise not only to loss in translation and mistranslation from a linguistic perspective but also misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the original text, we feel that King Fahd Holy Quran Printing Complex Version of Ali’s (1410H/1989G) which is a revised edition of Ali’s version (1934) could be taken after some kind of revisiting as a candidate for a potential version for standardisation and authorization. This would help us avoid too many duplication and make it more compatible with the contemporary mind-set of the English Language reader. Look at the amended underlined translation of the above five examples in the following table: Example 1:( 24:2) Example2:(80:33-36) Example3:( 17:32) Example4 :( 7:26) Example5 :( 33:35)

The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, - lash each of them with a hundred lashes.

“At length, when there comes the Deafening Noise, that day shall a man flee from his own brother, and from his mother and his father, and from his wife and his children,”

“Nor come nigh to adultery or fornication: for it is an indecent (deed) and an evil way

But the raiment of God-fearing and righteousness,- that is the best.

For men and women who engage much in God’s praise,-for them has God prepared forgiveness and great reward.

8. Conclusion and Recommendations From the above brief discussion of the samples, we can comfortably conclude that the Quran as a central text tends to cause very serious problems and difficulties for translators in terms of understanding, interpreting and translating certain theological concepts due to the linguistic sophistication of the Arabic language used in the text on the one hand, and the theological, sociocultural, psychological, spiritual and melodic dimensions of the Quranic word. Thus the above translators seem to have failed to replicate not only the complex web of the stylistic features found in the Quranic text, but also the theologically and culturally loaded concepts carried in the Quranic word. They have also failed in their quest for equivalence or communicative effectiveness. They have violated the loyalty to the source-text principle for the sake of producing a text that works in receptor-genre terms. Nevertheless, the version authorized by King Fahd Holy Quran Printing Complex of Ali’s Translation dated 1410H (1997) seems to be the most appropriate (probably legitimate) amongst the above six translations of the meanings/interpretations of the Quran, although it still needs some kind of revisiting in terms of standardising certain conceptual terms and modernising certain linguistic features in the translated text. However, standardising a translation of the Holy Quran is a tremendous undertaking which cannot be done at one go. To be practical and get things started, this endeavour must be a phased undertaking. The phases should be prioritised according to levels determined in terms of categories based on the gravity of attested and likely violations due to cultural differences. This would form part of a standardised dictionary. Thus comes the question of what constitutes the other parts as in Islamic terminologies which will of course coincide with elements in the former part. I think in our present state of ecstasy and elevated motivation something, at least in part, should materialize! Therefore, we would like to make the following recommendations: Ø The translation of the Quran should be officially institutionalised and governmentally authorised. An official

and authorised institution, for instance, such as that of King Fahd Holy Quran Society should be established to be in charge of this crucial undertaking and be continuously following up readers’ reactions, attitudes and feedback to using only one official and authoritative version of the translated text.

Ø A committee of God-fearing Arab and non-Arab Muslim bilingual scholars who hold sound theological

beliefs, the publisher and the editors should be involved in the end product of the official and authoritative version of the Quran translation addressed to other non-Arabic speaking Muslim and non-Muslim audience.

ALLS 5(1):122-133, 2014 131 Ø In translating the Quran, the translator should first strive not only to understand its multifaceted meaning, or

appreciating its stylistic features, or be able to catch something of the grandeur of the original revelation, but also be able to faithfully render its theological messages without misrepresenting or misinterpreting any of the principal concepts, norms and beliefs implied in them. He or she should have the ability to revel in the rhythm and music of the original text. He should be able to wonder at the meaning obvious or hidden in the Arabic text. He should simply avoid letting his own opinion interpret the text.

Ø The standardised version of the translated text of the Quran should be suitable in virtually all aspects and not subject to misunderstanding, misconception or distortion of any of the principal theological concepts of the original text and thus maintains the language, spirit and dynamicity of the original as approximate as possible to the Source Language version.

Ø Standardising should cover not only concepts and main principles but also some aspects of the form where a

uniform system, for example, of numbering the verses, Suras divisions of chapters and sections could be maintained to comply with what is universally used in the Arabic copies of the Quran and avoid causing confusion in giving and verifying references.

Ø Theological terms and sociocultural concepts and principles could be logged in a dictionary and made available for use in translating religious text-types and understanding the translated text of the Quran.

The following is just an example of how to standardise common theological concepts that don’t have counterparts in English and may give rise to misrepresenting, misinterpreting and even misconception of certain Islamic concepts and principles:

Standardised Translation Different Translations in English Arabic Terms & Concepts

mosque/masjid prayer place, Muslim prayer room, multi-faith prayer room.

مسجد/ جامع

covenant agreement, contract, promise, commitment, arrangement, treaty, pledge, concord.

عھد

parable story, tale, lesson, fable, allegory, moral tale, exemplum.

قصة

grace kindness, goodness, favour, goodwill, generosity, beneficence.

حمةكرم/ر

son of Adam son of humanity/offspring of humanity ابن آدم ‘taqwa’/god-fearing piety, righteousness, awareness of God,

consciousness of God. تقوى

‘shura’/consultation mutual consultation, counselling, mutual consent

شورى

Qibla ‘Restricted Temple’, ‘prayer direction’, قبلة It is vital to note here that the above table of examples needs to be considered in context. In other words, the standardised translation should be made according to the context the Arabic word is mentioned in as the same word may have different meanings in different contexts. This will help create a standardised but contextualised dictionary of theological terms and concepts of the Quran. This study seems to have left the following unanswered questions for researchers and translators to contemplate about and perhaps to come up with some possible answers:

1. Can the translator Islamise the English Language in the process of translating the Quran? In other words, can the rules of ‘English For Specific Purposes’ (ESP) be applied to make English an Islamic Language so that it would help convey the Islamic message specifically more faithfully, more plainly, more economically, more emotively and more effectively?

2. Can the translator transfer the scent of perfume he or she smells from the garden of the Quran to the English

readers so that they gladden their nostrils with it? In other words, how can we as translators achieve spiritual and mystic effect in the English version of the translation?

ALLS 5(1):122-133, 2014 132 3. Can the translator reflect the rhythm, music and exalted spirit of the original in the English version of the

translation? Can he or she invent a certain mechanism to achieve this seemingly unachievable task?

4. Is it possible for the translator to stop his or her personal views from interfering with the interpretation and then in the translation process of the Quran?

5. Can the translator use British English rather than American English in his or her translation, as linguistically speaking, there seems to be an obvious overlap in the use of American English with that of the British English and this would have some cultural repercussions for the British readers in particular and the European readers in general?

References Ali, A.Y. (1934, 1977). The Holy Quran: Translation and Commentary, 2nd edition American Trust Publication. Arberry, A. J. (1955, 1982). The Koran, Oxford University Press. Abdel-Haleem, M. (2004, 2010). The Quran: A New Translation, Oxford University Press. Abdel-Haleem, M. (2011). “Translating the Quran”, in Marshall, David (ed.) Communicating the Word: Revelation, Translation, and Interpretation in Christianity and Islam, George Town University Press, Washington, DC Abdul-Raof, H. (2001a). Quran Translation: Discourse, Texture and Exegesis. In Richmond: Curzon Abdul-Raof, H. (2005). “Cultural Aspects in Quran Translation”, in Long, Lynne (ed.) Translation and Religion, Topics in Translation, Multilingual Matters LTD. Al-Shabab, O.S. (1996). Interpretation and the Language of Translation: Creativity and convention in Translation, London, Janus. Al-Shabab, O.S. (1998). Translating with difference: Theory and Practice, DEBS, Damascus, Syria. Al-Shabab, O.S. (2008). Linguistic and Cultural Translation in the Translations of the Holy Quran into European Languages. In Scientific Journal of King Faisal University, Vol.9, Issue No. 2 Al-Shabab, O.S. (2008). From Necessity to Infinity: Interpretation in Language and Translation, London, Janus Al-Shabab, O.S. (2012). Textual Source and Assertion: Sale’s Translation of the Holy Quran. In Journal of King Saud University- Languages and Translation, Volume 24, Issue 1 January 2012, Pages 1-21. Baker, M. (2011). In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation, 2nd edition. Routledge Bobzin, H. (1993). Latin Translations of the Koran: A short Overview. In Islam: Zeitschrift fur Geschichte und Kulter des Islamischen Orients 70(2) : 193-206 Dawood, N. J. (1956, 1974). The Koran: Translated with Notes. Penguin Books. Delisle, Jean (1988). Translation: an Interpretive Approach, Translation of Part 1 of lánalyse du discours comme method de traduction, trans. In Patricia Logan and Monica Careey , Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press (Pages 53-6) Mustafa, H. (2011). Quran. In Baker, M & Saldanha, G (ed.) Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies. 2nd edition, Routledge. Nide, Eugene A. (2001). Language, Culture and Translating, Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press Porter, S. E. (2004). The Contemporary English Version and the Ideology of Translation, in Porter, S. E & Hess R. S (ed.). Translating the Bible: Problems & Prospects, T & T Clark International, A Continuum imprint, 2004. Hatim, B. & Mason I. (1990). Discourse and the Translator, Longman Group UK Limited Hermans, Theo, (2011). Hermeneutics, in Baker, M & Saldanha, G (ed.) Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies. 2nd edition. Routledge. KFS (1990). The Holy Quran: English Translation of the Meanings and Commentary, AL-Madinah Al-Munawarah, King Fahd Holy Quran Printing Complex. Long, L (2001). Translating the Bible: From the seventh to the Seventeenth Century. Aldershot: Ashgate. O’Donnell, Matthew Brook, (2004) Translation and the Exegetical Process, Using Marks 5.1-10, ‘The Binding of the Strong Man’, as a Test Case. In Porter, S. E & Hess R. S (ed.). Translating the Bible: Problems & Prospects. T & T Clark International, A Continuum imprint, 2004. Salama-Carr, M. (2011). Interpretive Approach. In Baker, M & Saldanha, G (ed.) Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies. 2nd edition.Routledge. Saeed, A. (2011). Authority in Quranic Interpretation and Interpretive Communities. In Marshall, David (ed.). Communicating the Word: Revelation, Translation, and Interpretation in Christianity and Islam. George Town University Press, Washington, DC

ALLS 5(1):122-133, 2014 133 Serban, A. (2005). Archaising versus Modernising in English Translations of the Orthodox Liturgy: John Crysostomos in the 20th Century. In Long, Lynne (ed.) Translation and Religion, Topics in Translation, Multilingual Matters LTD Seleskovitch, D. (1977). Take care of the Sense and the Sounds will Take Care of themselves or Why Interpreting is not Tantamount to Translating Language. The incorporated Linguist 16:27-33. Versteegh, K. (1991). Greek Translations of the Quran in Christian Polemics (Ninth Century A.D). Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 141 (1): 52-68. Yuksel, E., Al-Shaiban, L. S. & Schulte-Nafeh, M. (2007, 2010). Quran: A Reformist Translation, Brainbowpress, USA.



Using Supplementary Readings (Short Stories) in Increasing the Conceptual Fluency, the Case of Idioms in English

Elahe Mokhtari (Corresponding author)

English Department, Shahreza Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran Islamic Azad University, Pasdaran Street, Shahraza, Isfahan, Iran

E-mail:[email protected]

Mohammed Reza Talebinezhad English Department, Shahreza Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

Islamic Azad University, Pasdaran Street, Shahraza, Isfahan, Iran E-mail:[email protected]


The aim of this research was to probed whether using supplementary readings (short stories containing idioms) increase conceptual fluency of L2 learners. In line with the goal of the study, first, the researcher selected a sample of 30 female lower-intermediate L2 learners from Sadr Private Language Centre in Isfahan. She selected them based on their scores (75 or higher) in the previous term final exam. The researcher divided them into two groups. Then, she held a pre-test containing 30 multiple choice questions and registered their scores out of 30. Questions were mainly taken from the exercises of the book ‘Can You Believe It? (1)’. Next, she taught idioms to both groups 15 minutes each session and for thirty sessions, but provided only the experimental group with supplementary readings taken from the mentioned book. After that, she held a post-test containing 30 multiple choice questions and again registered their scores. Questions were taken again from book exercises with a higher level of difficulty comparing to the pre-test. Finally, the researcher compared the results obtained from groups’ mean scores, frequency of obtained scores, and t-test on pre-test and post-test. The results of the study showed that the experimental group accomplished far better than the control group on the post-test. It also showed that the experimental group development in terms of conceptual fluency was meaningful and reliable. Therefore, it can be concluded that using supplementary readings has positive effect on developing conceptual fluency of L2 learners.

Keywords: idiom, conceptual fluency, metaphorical competence

1. Introduction

The whole meaning of a complex lexical construction depends on the meaning of constituent parts, regards the compositionally principle. That is meaning of a expression combining the meaning of the element(i.e .words)that it contains (Cruse, 2006). In expression to which this principle doesn’t apply, non-compositionally or brought up. Traditionally idioms are considered to be a representative example of this category. Therefore, mainstream definitions hold that idioms “are restricted collocations which cannot normally be understood from the literal meaning of the words which make them up” (Carter, 1998).

Although there is shortage of agreement ,it is generally believed that idioms are used in a broad range of every day situation .since idioms are prevalent, they are linked to L2 proficiency or to move fluency. Many researchers (Ellis, 1997; Yorio, 1989) declare that sufficient knowledge and proper use of idioms in an L2 has a crucial role in communicative competence.

When students lack the communicative competence they cannot present themselves in authentic situations out of class. In a more optimistic view, students enhance verbal fluency which Danesi defines use the ability to produce grammatically and communicatively appropriate discourse in L2 . However, they do not necessarily develop conceptual fluency (including metaphorical competence) which defines as learners capability to apply and understand the concepts of a L2 (Danesi, 2003).

When metaphorical competence is inadequate in typical classroom, L2 learners' writings show a high degree of literalness. After three or four years of study, L2 learners learn nearly no new way of thinking conceptually, but only chiefly on their L1 conceptual base (Danesi, 1992).

ALLS 5(1):134-145, 2014 135 Students should be trained strategies to deal with figurative language, and those strategies would help them take advantage of the semantic transparency of some idioms. Conceptual fluency (including metaphorical competence) can be developed in the classroom if students are taught about the underlying cognitive mechanisms (Irjo, 1993).

Formal instruction created to progress pragmatic skills seemed to be greatly efficient when it focuses on formulaic implicatures (Bouton, 1994). Teaching about orientational metaphors underlying phrasal verbs will result in a better acquisition of idiom (Kövecses & Szabó, 1996).

Lack of language textbooks and systematic approach to teaching idioms to second and foreign language learners, it is suggested that Source Language (SL) teachers introduce idioms more regularly and systematically to their students. Increased attention to SL idiomaticity is a necessary first step toward creating a community of learners where the teachers and the learners simultaneously develop their own understanding of what they are doing (Allwright, 2006).

To start with the teaching materials, there are three main approaches relating the teaching of figurative language, which contains, between others, idioms and metaphors. The first type of materials gives figurative language (idioms included) as something special, the second exploits the cognitive linguistic view and the third combines figurative language among the various units (Littlemore & Low, 2006).

It should be noted that idioms are normal rather than special aspect of every day communication. so, a kind of concept-oriented book that includes all the essential information regarding morphosyntactic aspects and appropriateness cues plus authentic language (i.e. figurative language used by native speakers) is a convenient solution to deal with teaching idioms (Danesi, 1995).

1.1 Statement of the Problem

It is broadly accepted that teaching and learning idioms is considered to be not the easiest part of vocabulary instruction but rather a stumbling block (Laufer, 1997). Idiomaticity affects in a negative manner the comprehension at the high level (Marton, 1977). In the same vein, idiomatic expressions are hard to percieve and learn even when the two languages are similar in the use and meaning (Kellerman, 1978/ 1986).

L2 learners cannot easily improve conceptual fluency which in turn multiplies the problem of learning idioms. Learners enhance verbal fluency which is the ability to generate grammatically and communicatively suitable discourse in L2 (Danesi, 2003). However, they do not necessarily develop conceptual fluency which is the ability to use and understand the concepts of a L2 (Danesi, 2003).

It has been frequently observed that students produce discourses with a high level of verbal fluency that appears to lack the conceptual appropriateness that describes the identical corresponding discourses of a native speaker (Danesi, 1995).

It seems that L2 learners’ difficulty in learning idioms and their lack of conceptual fluency roots in not having enough exposure to L2 idioms in real life situations.

1.2 Purpose of the Study

Regarding the above mentioned problems, especially the lack of L2 learners’ exposure to idioms in real life situations, the purpose of the current study is to investigate whether using supplementary readings (short stories containing idioms) enhance L2 learners’ conceptual fluency.

1.2.1 Research Question

To pursue the purpose of the study, the following research question was posed:

Does using supplementary readings (short stories containing idioms) enhance L2 learners’ conceptual fluency?

1.2.2 Research Hypothesis

To answer the research question, the following hypothesis was formulated:

Using supplementary readings (short stories containing idioms) does not enhance L2 learners’ conceptual fluency.

1.3 Significance of the Study

Proficiency of appropriate use of idiomatic expressions is a part of important language learning. (Danesi, 1992). On the one hand, because of the extensive use of idiomatic expressions in daily dialogues, and in L2 learners need to learn how to use idiomatic expressions properly to develop speech fluency (De Caro, 2009; Oppenheim, 2000). On the other hand, these expressions often pose particular problems to L2 learning (Cooper, 1998; Fong, 2006; Steinel, Hulstijn, and Steinel, 2007). so, understanding how idiomatic expressions are shown in the mental lexicon of the L2 learners is very important. In the same line, the present study tries to investigate the effect of using supplementary readings (short stories containing idioms) on the possible improvement of conceptual fluency in L2 learners.

2. Literature Review

Idioms are a colorful and appealing aspect of English. They are usually used in every types of language, informal and formal, spoken and written. Idioms frequently have a stronger meaning than non-idiomatic phrases. Idioms may also suggest a particular attitude of the person using them, for example humor, disapproval, exasperation or admiration so

ALLS 5(1):134-145, 2014 136 you must use them carefully (Irujo, 1993). Unlike novel phrases, idioms are remembered as essential units. Most native speakers frequently use these units in their conversation; therefore, idioms form a very main part of any natural language (Vanlancker-Sidtis, 2003; Wray, 2003).

Glucksberg (2001) classifies idioms as compositional and non-compositional. Compositional idioms have a semantic relation to the idiomatic meaning. Breaking the ice is an example in which “the word break corresponds to the idiomatic sense of abruptly changing an uncomfortable social situation, and the word ice corresponds to the idiomatic sense of social or interpersonal tension” (Glucksberg, 2001, p.73). Non-compositional idioms have no relation to the meaning of the idiom. By and large has no literal meaning and it is not possible to alter or paraphrase (Glucksberg, 2001, p.73).

Glucksberg (2001) argues that “fixed expressions are recognized the same way as single words, via a process of elimination” (p.70). This means that the beginning of a word or a compound permits the listener or reader to predict its ending .However, regarding expressions like idioms, there may be many beginning with the same word. Thus, predicting the end of an idiom is harder. The prediction depends on when the “keyword” appears. An idiomatic expression where the keyword appears early may be recognized faster than an idiom where the keyword appears late (Glucksberg, 2001).

According to Cooper (1998), people try to analyze idioms in regards of compositionality and to assign independent meanings to the constituents of an idiom, which will shape the overall figurative interpretation. When it is possible to assign meanings to the individual words composing an idiom, like in don’t give up the ship, it is also easier to combine these meanings to form a figurative interpretation, as opposed to when meanings cannot be assigned to the individual constituents like in kick the bucket (p.236).

Children acquiring their native language learn compositional and transparent idioms fairly easy and they treat idioms just as ordinary language. Nonetheless, this way of treating the constituents of an idiom just like any other word is sometimes a problem for second language learners since they try to translate the literal meaning into their native language (Glucksberg, 2001). In addition, the understanding of an idiom is also depending on if the idiom is used conventionally, i.e. as an idiom, or unconventionally, that is, literally (Gibbs, 1980).

A higher degree of transparency as well as context facilitates the general understanding of an idiom (Danesi, 1995).

Talking about idiomatic expressions, attention should be paid to all parts of its circumstances, such as metaphorical competence, conceptual metaphors, followed by conceptual fluency.

To be conceptually fluent in a language is to know, in big part, how that language “reflects” or encodes concepts on the basis of metaphorical reasoning. This kind of knowledge, like gr communicative (pragmatic)and grammatical knowledge, is by and large unconscious in native speakers (Danesi, 1995).

Metaphors provide a means for understanding something abstract in terms of something concrete. These metaphors inform normal ways of talking about life situation. They are not just "poetic" but rather determine "usage" in our language. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is basically metaphorical in nature (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Research offers that at least a fixed part of the human mind is 'programmed' to think metaphorically (see Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1987; Johnson, 1987; Danesi, 1992). Metaphor likely underlies the showing of an important part of our common concepts.

A subject matter in the study of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in lately years is the extent to which learners of an L2 learn how to state themselves in the target language using figurative speech going with the culture. It is called the disregarded dimension in L2 teaching (Danesi, 1992). Gibbs (1994), in researching the psycholinguistic facts on figurative language, explains that “in proper contexts people mostly use the metaphorical asset of a message rather than its literal meaning” (p. 63). so, metaphors are part of communicative interaction (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006).

The conceptual system is an image of reality on which is based every part of human symbolic behavior. Our religious beliefs, figurative arts, social organization and language are rooted in it in some necessary way (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). But this conceptual system is not something we are usually aware of.

Because communication is based on the similiar conceptual system that we use in acting and thinking, language is a significant cause of indication for what that system is like. but, the analysis of language is especially illuminating since language is our primary means of communication. Since the relationship between the notions in the conceptual system is metaphorical, metaphor at the conceptual level turns "understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another" (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). The study of metaphor and its dealings to language and cognition took on a new way in the 1980's with the publication of Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) book Metaphors We Live By and with the advance progress of their ideas later in the decade (Lakoff, 1987; Johnson, 1987). Their fundamental point of contention was that metaphors are not only an ornamentation of language, a poetic refrence or a rhetorical device, but rather metaphors and the capacity to metaphorize are a basic aspect of human cognition. According to their theory (1987), human cognition and behavior is ruled by and mediated through a non-linguistic conceptual system which is basic in how we arrange and comprehend our percepts, thoughts, and consequently reality (p. 43).

ALLS 5(1):134-145, 2014 137 There are many aspects of language learning that are not conceptual , mainly because language learners can get quite fluency in the target language without conceptual fluency . For example, they are possibly perceptual, indexical, denotative or iconic, which can be gained by the foreigny language learners without much difficulty (Kecsks, 1999). however speakers with low level of conceptual fluency will never seem native-like.

Conceptual Fluency Theory holds that underlying any given linguistic system is a conceptual system which serves as the fundemental not merely for language, however for cognitive functioning in general: we speak, perceive, think, and interpret the world in terms of our conceptual system (Danesi, 1992). In acquiring another language, so, L2 learners must express themselves in the TL while utilizing the L2 conceptual system in order to express themselves in a truly native-like fashion. To be conceptually fluent is to be able to partake in a target culture perception of the physical and social world and to interact with it like a native. Figurative language competence has aroused the interest of a number of L2 researchers (Danesi, 1992).

Danesi (1995) debates that “L2 learners do not achieve the fluency level of a native speaker until they have knowledge of "how that language 'reflects' or 'encodes' concepts on the basis of metaphorical reasoning” (p. 5).

Between foreign language learners there is an presumption that no real fluency is possible in a foreign language unless the learner spends some time in the target language country. Every language learner travelling in the target language country uses wrong or nonnative-like construction ,phrases and words and has experienced a certain kind of hopeless which is the result of not saying meaning the same way as native speakers. What these learners lack most is conceptual fluency which means knowing how the target language reflects or encodes its concepts on the basis of metaphorical structuring (Danesi, 1992) and other cognitive mechanisms (Kovecses & Szabo, 1996).

Foreign language learners usually rely on the conceptual base of their mother tongue and they map target language forms on L1 conceptualizations (Kecskes, 1995).so, their problem is basically not grammatical but conceptual. This is why there is nothing like full profiency of a second or foreign language, and this is where multi-competence should be difrentiated from mono-competence. Foreign language learners have not merely to master the grammatical structures and communicative peculiarities of the new language but also, in order to sound native-like, they have to learn to think as native speakers do, understand the world the way native speakers do, and use the language metaphorically as native speakers do (Kecskes, 1995).

3. Methodology

As mentioned earlier, previous studies have rarely used idioms as a way to develop conceptual fluency in L2 learners. hence, the goal of the current study was to teach idioms through supplementary readings to increase L2 learners’ conceptual fluency.

An experimental method of research was used to collect data and find the possible effects of using supplementary readings (short stories containing idioms) on enhancing L2 learners’ conceptual fluency. In interpreting the results, this study mainly used a quantitative approach.

3.1 Participants

Participants of the present study were 30 female lower-intermediate L2 learners from Sadr Private Language Centre (SPLC) in Isfahan. They were selected based on their scores (75 or higher) in the previous term final exam. Then, they were divided into two groups of 15 students.

3.2 Material

The material in the present study was the book ‘can you believe it (1)’ written by Huizenga in 1996. It was published by OUP publications and included 113 pages, fifteen lessons, review, and appendices in the form of answer key, idiom groups, phrasal verbs, and lexicon.

The logic behind selecting the book was its availability, its frequent publication, its volume, the number of lessons, and being among the best-sellers.

3.3 Instruments

Instruments used in the present study were mainly a pre-test and a post-test.

The Pre-test was held to evaluate the students’ proficiency level in idioms. It consisted of thirty multiple choice questions. Each choice was an idiom. Idioms were mainly those L2 Learners had learned in previous terms or among more fashionable ones included in the book exercises (see Appendix 1).

The Post-test was also held after teaching idioms and providing one group with short stories containing idioms (supplementary reading) at the end of the term. It also consisted of thirty multiple choice questions taken from the book exercises. Here again, each choice was an idiom. But, this time the idioms were those learners had learned for the first time. Therefore, post-test enjoyed a higher level of difficulty (see Appendix 2).

3.4 Procedures

To answer the research question, the researcher conducted the following steps:

ALLS 5(1):134-145, 2014 138 First, the researcher selected a sample of 30 female lower- intermediate level students of SPLC based on their score (75 or higher) in previous term final exam.

Then, she held a pre-test for both groups. It consisted of thirty multiple choice questions containing idioms taken from the exercises of the book ‘Can you believe it?’ The researcher selected more fashionable idioms and allocated two questions to each lesson. She registered students’ score out of thirty for both groups. She also conducted a t-test.

Next, the researcher taught both groups idioms fifteen minutes each session for thirty sessions. She wrote the idioms on the board and gave some intances. At the end of each session she provided only one of the groups with the copies of supplementary readings/ stories to study at home. The stories contained the same idioms taught in the class. Neither the first nor the second group had access to the original book or its exercises.

After that, the researcher held the post-test. It also consisted of thirty multiple choice questions containing idioms taken from the exercises of the book ‘Can you believe it?’ She allocated two questions to each lesson. This time the researcher selected idioms which students had learned in class and rarely heard before. Again she registered students’ score out of thirty for both groups. She also conducted a t-test.

Finally, the researcher submitted raw data to SPSS 16.0 and compared the results obtained from the pre-test and post-test for both groups to establish the effect of using supplementary readings containing idioms on enhancing students conceptual fluency. She also used histograms and tables in illustrating the results.

4. Results and Data Analysis

This part provides the detailed statistical analysis conducted throughout the research.

4.1 Participants’ Mean Score on Pre-test

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of the Performance of Control and Experimental Group on Pre-test

group n Pre- test

mean Std. Deviation

Experimental 15 9.9333 3.88158

Control 15 8.4667 4.27395

Total 30 9.2000 4.08023

The difference of mean scores between control and experimental group (1.4666) on pre-test is not significant which shows both groups are approximately at the same level of proficiency in terms of conceptual fluency (see table 1).

4.2 Frequency of the Obtained Scores of Control and Experimental Groups on Pre-test

16.00 14.00 12.0010.00 8.006.00 4.00 2.00

Figure 1. Frequency of the Scores of Control Group on Pre-test

4

3

2

1

0 Mean = 8.4667Std. Dev. =4.27395N = 15

Pre-test (Control Group)

Freq

uenc

y

ALLS 5(1):134-145, 2014 139

The range of scores obtained by both groups out of 30 was more or less the same. Therefore, both groups were approximately at the same level of proficiency on pre-test in terms of conceptual fluency (see figure 1 and 2). Table 2. T-test

t df Sig. 0.984 28 0.334

In order to ensure that there is no important difference between the control and experimental groups regarding their conceptual fluency, t-test was performed. The results, as Table 2 shows, indicate that that there is no statistically significant difference between experimental and control group (t2, 30 = 0.984, p > 0.005) in their implementation on pre-test. 4. 3 Participants’ Mean Score on Post-test

Table 3. Descriptive Statistics of the Performance of Control and Experimental Group on Post-test

group n Post- test mean Std. Deviation

experimental 15 23.6667 3.15474 control 15 20.4000 4.71775

total 30 22.0333 4.27892 The difference of mean scores a control among and experimental group on post-test is higher than that of pretest (3.2667 > 1.4667) which shows treatment (supplementary readings containing idioms) was effective for experimental group (see table 3). 4.4 Frequency of the Obtained Scores of Control and Experimental Groups on Post-test

30.0025.0020.0015.0010.00

Figure 3. Frequency of the Scores of Control Group on Post-test

5

4

3

2

1

0

Freq

uenc

y

Mean = 20.40Std. Dev. =4.71775N = 15

Post-test (Control Group)

16.0014.00 12.00 10.00 8.00 6.00 4.002.00

5

4

3

2

1

0Fr

eque

ncy

Mean = 9.9333Std. Dev. =3.88158N = 15

Pre-test (Experimental Group)

Figure 2. Frequency of the Scores of Experimental Group on Pre-test

ALLS 5(1):134-145, 2014 140

In comparison with the pre-test, both groups obtained better scores on post-test (see figures 3 and 4). But on the one hand, the lowest and highest scores of experimental group (18 & 28) are higher than that of control group (10 & 27.5). And on the other hand, the difference between the highest and lowest scores for experimental group (10) is less than that of control group (17.5). It shows that experimental group was positively affected by the treatment (supplementary readings containing idioms). The scores obtained by experimental group were close to the mean which shows the homogeneity of the group in terms of conceptual fluency. Therefore, the experimental group developed its conceptual fluency in a meaningful way while control group development was not reliable or homogeneous.

Table 4. T-test

t df Sig.

-2.815 28 0.009

In order to ensure that there is a significant difference between the control and experimental group in their performance on post-test, t-test was performed. The results, as Table 4 shows, indicate that there is a statistically important difference between experimental and control group (t2, 30 = -2.815, p < 0.005) regarding their conceptual fluency on post-test.

4.5 Comparison of the Performance of Groups on Pre-test and Post-test

The difference between the Performance of Groups on Pre-test and Post-test is shown in figure 5.

Figure 5. The Difference between the Performance of Groups on Pre-test and Post-test 5. Discussion In this part, the obtained results are discussed in an effort to answer the following research question of the study: Does using supplementary readings (short stories containing idioms) enhance L2 learners’ conceptual fluency? In order to answer the research question, first, the researcher selected two female lower-intermediate groups of L2 learners in SPLC. The, she held a pre-test containing 30 multiple choice questions. Next, she taught idioms to both control and experimental groups, but provided only experimental group with supplementary readings (short stories

28.0026.0024.0022.0020.0018.00

Figure 4. Frequency of the Scores of Experimental Group on Post-test

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Freq

uenc

y

Mean = 23.6667Std. Dev. =3.15474N = 15

Post-test (Experimental Group)

ALLS 5(1):134-145, 2014 141 containing idioms). After that, she held a post-test containing 30 multiple choice questions with a higher level of difficulty comparing to the pre-test. Finally, the researcher compared the results of mean score, frequency of scores, and t-test on pre-test and post-test for both groups to determine the possible development of participants’ conceptual fluency in L2. Comparing participants’ mean score on pre- test and post-test shown in tables 4.1 and 4.3 respectively shows that the difference of mean score of control and experimental groups was not significantly different on pre-test, but it showed a significant difference on post-test. Comparing the results of t-test for pre-test and post-test shown in tables 4.2 and 4.4 concedes the results of mean score for groups. Close examination of figures 4.1 to 4.4 shows that the range of scores obtained by control and experimental groups on pre-test was approximately the same while this range on post-test was very better for experimental group. The scores obtained by experimental group were also close to the mean which shows the homogeneity of the group in terms of conceptual fluency. Therefore, the experimental group developed its conceptual fluency in a meaningful way while control group development was not reliable or homogeneous. Considering what was mentioned above, it can be concluded that participants who were at the same level of proficiency in terms of conceptual fluency on pre-test performed differently on the post-test. In other words, experimental group performed better on the post-test. This fact concedes the positive effect of using supplementary readings on enhancing conceptual fluency of L2 learners. The results obtained from the current study is in line with the results of other studies done on the development of conceptual fluency of L2 learners including Danesi (1995), Talebinezhad (2007), Hashemian and Talebinezhad (2007) and Ghane shirazi and Talebinezhad (2013). All of the mentioned studies like the present study held that it is possible to enhance the conceptual fluency of L2 learners to a meaningful degree. 6. Conclusions The present study was aimed at investigating the effect of using supplementary readings (short stories containing idioms) on developing conceptual fluency of L2 learners. Based on the discussion of the results, the following conclusions were drawn:

• Fluent non-native speakers, even highly competent speakers of English, cannot understand and comprehend idiomatic expressions in different situations as well as native speakers.

• Idioms are an indispensible part of language; they can have several meanings depending on the context within which they are used. so, they are difficult for L2 learners. But they should not be ignored in L2 teaching.

• On the one hand, lack of idiomatic knowledge can have a negative impact on L2 learners’ performance in real life situation in L2 setting. On the other hand, learning idiomatic expressions help L2 learners in better communication in the target culture.

• Considering the difficulty of idioms for L2 learners, one cannot expect L2 learners to understand the meanings of idioms outside context or to produce them in their own speech or writing. What is very useful for students to learn and use the expressions is using contexts containing idioms compatible with the students’ level of proficiency in L2.

• Comparing idioms in L2 to idioms in learners’ native language can be useful in developing conceptual fluency if they are somehow the same.

• Contexts containing idioms with more similarity to the real life situations can have a better effect on the development of conceptual fluency in L2 learners.

So it can be concluded that context plays a major role in the construction of idiomatic meaning and having contextualized idioms in the L2 learners’ syllabus can be really useful in enhancing their idiomatic conceptual fluency. Therefore, using supplementary readings in the form of short stories containing idioms has a positive impact on developing conceptual fluency of L2 learners. References Allwright, R. (2006). Six promising directions in applied linguistics. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bouton, L. (1994). Can NNS skill in interpreting implicatures in American English improved through explicit instruction? A pilot study on pragmatics and language learning presented at Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois. http:// www. eric.ed.gov/?id=ED398742 Carter, R. (1998). Vocabulary. Applied linguistics perspectives. New York: Routledge. Cooper, T. C. (1998). Processing of idioms by L2 learners of English. TESOL Quarterly .Vol.33, pp. 233-262. http:// www.public.iastate.edu Cruse, A. (2006). A glossary of semantics and pragmatics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

ALLS 5(1):134-145, 2014 142 Danesi, M. (1992). Metaphorical competence in second language acquisition and second language teaching: the neglected dimension. In ALATIS, J.E. (ed.). Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, pp. 489-500. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. http://www.engl.polyu.edu.hk/metaphor/lit/danesi_conceptualfluency.pdf Danesi, M. (1995). Learning and teaching languages: the role of “conceptual fluency. International Journal of Applied Linguistics .Vol. 5, No. 1. http:// www.engl.polyu.edu.hk/metaphor/lit/danesi_conceptualfluency.pdf Danesi, M. (2003). Second language teaching. A view from the right side of the brain. Holland: Dordretcht. De Caro, E. E. R. (2009). The Advantages and Importance of Learning and Using Idioms in English. Cuadernos de Lingüística Hispánica .Vol. 14, pp.121-126. http:// www.dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/3618851.pdf Ellis, N. (1997). Vocabulary acquisition: word structure, collocation, word-class, and meaning. Cambridge: CUP. Fong, Y. Y. (2006). An experimental investigation to determine the utility of conceptual metaphors and metonymies in enhancing idioms comprehension for EFL undergraduate learners of English. Unpublished master’s thesis, Tamkang University, Taipei, Taiwan. http:// www. tkuir.lib.tku.edu.tw Ghane Shirazi, M., & Talebinezhad, M.R. (2013). Develpoing intermediate EFL learners' metaphorical competence through exposure. Theory and Practice in Language Studies .Vol. 3, No. 1, pp.135-141. http:// www.ojs.academypublisher.com Gibbs, R. W. (1994). The poetics of mind. Figurative thought, language and understanding. Cambridge: CUP. Gibbs, R.W. (1980). Spilling the beans on understanding and memory for idioms in conversation. Memory & Cognition .Vol.8, pp. 449-456. http:// link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2FBF03213418 Glucksberg, S. (2001). Understanding Figurative Language. From Metaphors to Idiom. Oxford: OUP. Hashemian, M, & Talebinezhad, M.R. (2007). The development of conceptual fluency and metaphorical competence in L2 learners. The Fourth TELLSI Conference. http:// www.linguistik-online.de/.../hashemiannezhad Huizenga, J. (1996). Can you believe it? Oxford: OUP. Irujo, S. (1993). Steering clear: avoidance in the production of idioms. International Review of Applied Linguistics.Vol.31, pp. 205-219. http:// www.degruyter.com/view/j/iral.1993.31.issue.../iral.1993.31.3.205.xml Johnson, M. (1987). The Body in the Mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Kecskes, I. (1995). Concept formation of Japanese EFL/ESL students. Yamato-matchi: IUJ. Kecskes, I. (1995). Concept formation of Japanese EFL/ESL students. Yamato-matchi: IUJ. Kecskes, I. (1999). Conceptual fluency and the use of situation-bound utterances in L2. Journal of Links & Letters.Vol.2, pp. 145-161. http:// www.ddd.uab.es/pub/lal/11337397n7p145.pdf Kellerman, E. (1986). An eye for an eye: crosslinguistic constraints on the development of the L2 lexicon. New York: Pergamon Institute of English. Kellerman, E. (1978). Giving learners a break: native language intuitions as a source of predictions about transferability. Working Papers on Bilingualism, pp.59-92. http:// www. eric.ed.gov/?id=ED153469 koveces and Szabo,(1996).Idioms:a view from cognitive semantics. Journal of Applied linguistics .Vol. 17(3). pp. 326-355. http:// www. applij.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/3/326 Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire and dangerous things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G., & Johenson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lantolf, J. P., & Thorne, S. L. (2006). Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. Oxford: OUP. Laufer, B. (1997). What’s in a word that makes it hard or easy: some intralexical factors that affect learning of words. Cambridge: CUP. Littlemore, J., & Low, G. (2006). Figurative thinking and foreign language Learning. New York: Palgrave McMillan. Marton, W. (1977). Foreign vocabulary learning as problem number one of foreign language teaching at the advanced level. Interlanguage Studies Bulletin .Vol. 2, pp.33-47. http:// www. www.metaphorik.de/15/andreou-galantomos.pdf Oppenheim, N. (2000). The importance of recurrent sequences for nonnative speaker fluency and cognition. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan. Steinel, M. P., hulstijn, J., & Steinel, W. (2007). Second language idiom learning in a paired associate paradigm. Effects of direction of learning, direction of testing, Idiom Imageability and Idiom Transparency. Studies in Second Language Acquisition .Vol. 29, pp. 449-484. http:// www. sla.sjtu.edu.cn

ALLS 5(1):134-145, 2014 143 Talebinezhad, M.R. (2007). Conceptual fluency and metaphorical competence in second language acquisition: two sides of the same coin? Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities of Shiraz University.Vol.26, No.4. http:// www.ensani.ir/.../20110226140458 Vanlancker-Sidtis, D. (2003). Auditory recognition of idioms by native and non-native speakers of English: It takes one to know one. Applied Psycholinguistics .Vol. 24, pp. 45-57. http://www.researchgate.net/...Auditory_recognition_of_idioms_by_native Wray, A. (2003). Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge: CUP. Yorio, C. (1989). Idiomaticity as an indicator of second language Proficiency. Cambridge: CUP.

Appendix 1 Pre-test

Name: Complete these parts of stories. Fill in the blanks with idioms. ………………………………………………………………………………………… 1. What makes you ……? a) lose it b) get rid of c) take look d) can’t stand 2. I want to ………….. that smell. a) can’t stand b) picks up c) get rid of d) laugh at 3. A woman is …………… from Vancouver to Victoria. a) sits down b) is red in the face c) after a while d) taking a ferry 4. What time do you usually ……… to your house or apartment? a) go back b) is red in the face c) slow down d) calm down 5. They usually ………….. at night. a) run away b) fall asleep c) heads for d) calm down 6. She ……… what she sees. a) is horrified by b) makes herself at home c) has fallen asleep d) wakes up 7. He ……….. the elevator and goes to the street. a) gets better b) going after c) is in a big trouble d) gets on 8. She is ………… a heart attack. a) fast sleep b) turn off c) get in d) getting over 9. The business man …………… and crashes in to a lamp post. a) calms down b) freaks out c) pays for d) on the way 10. We pay for the 50 pagers, puts them in his car, and ……….. the office. a) get rid of b) as for c) head for d) crazy about 11. I …………. Spiders and snakes, aren’t you? a) is in to b) am fed up with c) am frightened by d) after a while 12. Do you want to ………… Mozart? a) put on b) listen to c) is crazy about d) right away 13. Basketball is her favorite sport. She …………. It. a) is crazy about b) is steaming c) speed up d) get along with 14. She is studying Chinese ……….. Japanese. a) fed up with b) laugh at c) as well as d) look like 15. I’d like to ………, but my boss doesn’t want me to. a) slow down b) take vacation c) just in time d) see eye to eye 16. Can you …………. me, please? a) save the day b) easy as pie c) is steaming d) take of a picture 17. You’re late again! The boss is steaming, you ……….. now. a) are crazy about b) are hanging on for dear life c) are in big trouble d) are getting along with everyone. 18. Hurry! The plane is going to ………. in ten minutes. a) Take away b) take off c) slow down d) get better 19. I don’t want to play this game anymore. I ………….. it. a) am fed up with b) drop by c) was over d) made a mistake 20. The cat has my shoes! …………. them …………from him! a) listen…to b) cheer…up c) Take…off d) Take…away 21. The teacher will ……….. the students early. a) let out b) stare at c) come across d) belong to 22. The guards had ………… and forgotten to lock it. a) save the day b) was over c) made a mistake d) show up 23. The bikes ………..john. a) belong to b) stare at c) think about d) let out 24. Hurry! If you don’t ……….. now, you’ll be late. a) lie down b) get up c) show up d) drop in

ALLS 5(1):134-145, 2014 144 25. I miss you. Please …………. when you’re in town. a) drop out of b) make a living m c) drop in d) in addition 26. The police will ……… the crime. a) come across b) at times c) see eye to eye d) look in to 27. Please don’t …………. me. a) at once b) stare at c) so far d) dirt poor 28. What do you ………. this book? a) think about b) belong to c) in addition d) show up 29. I’ll ……….. my old car. a) give away b) well off c) easy as pie d) lie down 30. Pavel wants to ………… school. a) get mad at b) drop out of c) well off d) break in to

Appendix 2 Post-test

Name: Complete these parts of stories. Fill in the blanks with idioms. ...................................................................................................................................................... 1) Carmen, why did you …………… that Tv again? You’ve watched enough for today. a) take a look at b) get rid of c) turn on d) can’t stand 2) These Programs …………….. . Turn it off now. It’s time to do your home work. a) are getting worse b) picks up c) can’t stand d) slow down 3) The stylist ……………. his comb from his pocket. a) is red in the face b) picks up c) takes out d) sits down 4) Koon man is still angry. I’ll never …………… that salon! he says. a) go back to b) at home c) interested in d) sits down 5) The woman quietly goes to another room and calls the police “please hurry”. She says, “before he wakes up and ……………. . a) is horrified by b) take a nap c) has fallen asleep d) runs away 6) The police arrive right away. The thief is still …………….., the police arrest the man, walter Morgano, age 35. a) fall sleep b) turns over c) make a mistake d) taking a nap 7) I can’t ……………. this cold. I have a headache. a) get out of b) get better c) get over d) get out of 8) Mr. Ramirez, can I ………….. work early today? I’d like to go home and go to bed. a) get on b) get out of c) cheer you up d) again and again 9) One day, Betty Vaughn, a school teacher, ………… at a mall near her house. a) speed up b) on the way c) goes shopping d) going after 10) He won’t want to ……………… the repair to the car. a) get in b) Pay for c) freaks out d) heads for 11) Hey Giorgio. Why don’t you ………….. to night. I don’t know. I have lots of home work. a) drop by b) frightened by c) listen to d) as for 12) I’ll call you ………… to see how it’s going. a) after while b) lots of c) right away d) take off 13) The Bubble lady, as she is called, says that life is full of tragedy. “This is a way to …………… people aren’t laughing at. a) is into b) are crazy about c) cheer…up d) as well as 14) You are …………… to the Grand can you? How wonderful! Can I come? a) won’t believe your eyes b) get in c) taking a vacation d) going after 15) I was there a few years ago and loved it. Do you have your camera? You’ll want to….. . a) on vacation b) are in big trouble c) take pictures d) take away 16) We’re late! We have to …………… a little. a) slow down b) crazy about c) speed up d) as well as 17) We’ll ……………….. if we’re late for school again. Ms. Vine will get angry. a) be in big trouble b) as for c) going after d) after a while 18) Robert Noland doesn’t ………….. his neighbor. a) again and again b) get along with c) keep on d) going after 19) Why are the police ……………me? a) is steaming b) is fed up with c) take off d) is in to 20) People in Bodengraven love to …………… at their local Mc Donald’s restaurant. a) later on b) easy as pie c) spend time d) think a bout 21) It was time to …………… the hostages. a) let out b) made a mistake c) was over d) fall asleep 22) One evening, Tracey schelans ki ………………… and fell asleep. a) lay down b) belong to c) take a took d) turn off

ALLS 5(1):134-145, 2014 145 23) A few hours later, she heard a loud crash. She ……………….. and looked out the window. a) got up b) showed up c) saved the day d) runs away 24) Hey, Gianni. …………..? Where’s my car? You said you were returning it today. a) at once b) what’s going on c) get mad at d) at least 25) Paco, calm down. Some one hit it in a parking lot. I reported it to the police and they’re ………. it. I’m really sorry, man. a) a smell a rat b) at times c) looking in to d) see eye to eye 26) Mom, I want to do something to my hair ……………. changing the color. a) get mad at b) I’m thinking about c) be longed to d) show up 27) It’s boring. I love red hair. Purple hair ………… too. a) is in b) at times c) showed up d) be in 28) Don Stephensen is ……………. . a) in addition b) gives away c) one in a million d) freaks out 29) Now Stephenson has a home and ……………. as a mechanic. a) makes a living b) see eye to eye c) can’t stand d) calms down 30) What …………. When you are sad? a) cheers you up b) is in to c) are laughing at d) take away



The Impact of Time-Series Diagnostic Tests on the Writing Ability of Iranian EFL learners

Bahareh Molazem Atashgahi



This study aimed to show whether administering a battery of time-series diagnostic tests (screening) has any impact on Iranian EFL learners’ writing ability. The study was conducted on the intermediate EFL learners at Islamic Azad University North Tehran branch. The researcher administered a homogenizing test in order to exclude the exceptional scores, among all the testers, only those whose scores were nearly within one standard deviation above or below the mean were selected as the participants of this study. After the assignment of the participants to the control and experimental groups- 30 students in each group- they were asked to write five-paragraph-essays on two topics. Such a pretest was given to both groups to test their initial writing ability. Once scoring of the students’ writings (five- paragraph essay) was finished the two means of the groups were calculated and compared with each other through the t-test analysis. The result demonstrated that there was no statistically significant difference between those two groups regarding the variable under investigation. Four sets of diagnostic tests were given to the experimental group every two weeks and after each test both the result of the exam and suitable feedback regarding students’ errors were given to them by the teacher, while the Current-Traditional Rhetoric method was administered in the control group.

In the posttest which was run after giving the treatment and placebo to experimental group and control group respectively, students took another writing test with the same characteristics in administration, topics and scoring as the one in pretest. Thereafter, the significance of the difference between the obtained means of experimental and control groups in the posttest was determined through the t-test. The result of the t-test analysis indicated a significant difference between the two groups which consequently rejected the null hypothesis of the study.

Therefore, any significant difference between the performance of experimental and control groups were attributed to the effectiveness of treatment which in this study was a set of parallel form diagnostic tests and the related feedback which was given by the teacher. Two matched t-test were also calculated to determine whether students in two groups had any improvements from the pretest to posttest or not.

Keywords: time-series, writing ability, feedback, diagnostic writing test

1. Introduction

Many scholars including (Harris 1969, Sako 1969, Wilkinson 1980, Madsen 1983, McDonough 1985) asserted that there are many elements to be considered in writing. These factors include: form, content, vocabulary, grammatical accuracy, penmanship, speed, mechanics, relevance, elaboration, originality, diction, layout, coherence, cohesion, unity, organization, and logic. Harris (1962) stated "writing as a complex skill involves the simultaneous practice of a number of very different abilities, some of which are never fully achieved by many students even in their native language" (p.68). He considered content, form, grammar, style and mechanics as the components of writing. In this regard, Madsen (1983) enumerated a number of different components and skills to be tested in writing. For Sako (1972) vocabulary, structure, accuracy and speed of script writing, spelling, punctuation, content and organization of material are the elements of writing. Meanwhile, MC- Donugh (1985) suggested grammar, coherence, relevance, and the structure of the argument as the attributes of a written task.

The attention to EFL writing has led to challenges among teachers for finding the most appropriate way of teaching writing in language classrooms. Writing as (Hilton and Hyder 1995) defined “is conveying our message in words through which we express our thoughts, ideas, questions, remarks, etc.” (p.17).

From time to time, teachers may take an interest in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each individual student in terms of the instructional objectives for the purpose of correcting an individual’s deficiencies “before it is too late” (Brown 2005). To that end, diagnostic decisions are typically made at the beginning or middle of the term and are aimed at fostering achievement by promoting strengths and eliminating the weaknesses of individual students.

Naturally the primary concern of the teacher must be the entire group of students collectively, but some attention can also be given to each individual student (Brown, 2005). While diagnostic decisions are definitely related to

ALLS 5(1):146-153, 2014 147 achievement, diagnostic testing often requires more detailed information about which specific objectives students can already do well and which they still need to work on.

Most teachers utilize direct assessment to measure the writing ability of their students as a holistic measure since it focuses on convention, linguistic and rhetorical knowledge of writing. However, teachers are never completely satisfied with the progression their students make although they put a lot of burden on their shoulders during teaching and scoring procedure.

According to (Alderson, Clapham et al. 1995) in a process of teaching a new language, especially in writing skill there always has been a lack of criteria to apply for screening the students during a course of study. The reason might be due to fact that normalization of the use of a series of diagnostic tests for the purpose of screening students has not yet occurred in most language classrooms. Teachers always limit themselves to provide students with feedbacks on their compositions that might be ignored by the majority of students.

There is no doubt that writing skill is the most difficult skill for L2 learners to master. The difficulty lies not only in generating and organizing ideas, but also in translating these ideas in to readable text. With so many conflicting theories around and so many implementation factors to consider, teaching a course in writing would be a daunting task. Therefore, it is important to know how to treat learner's errors (Richards and Renandya 2002).

One of the concerns of EFL teachers is to help students to develop the ability to produce correct and acceptable compositions. But there are very few studies that concern the manner in which teachers assess their students’ foreign language skills whilst in the process of teaching and learning. General assessment studies on teacher behavior in language classrooms have shown that teachers spend a relatively small amount of time assessing individual student performance in order to diagnose their weaknesses (Edelenbos and Jong 2003).

According to (Truscott 1996) unfortunately, many teachers consider error correction in writing as just letting candidates receive a large amount of support in terms of feedback (mostly written corrective feedback) on their produced piece of writing. Truscott (1996) claimed that using this method for ESL (English as a second language) writers is ineffective.

On the other hand, providing students with an organized and relevant feedback through the use of diagnostic tests whose purpose is to find and then focus on learners’ real deficiencies and needs would be beneficial.

In general, the primary goal of traditional educational tests is to make inferences about an individual test taker’s general ability with reference to other test takers in the normative group (Brown and Hudson 2002). Such traditional testing has been criticized for not providing diagnostic information to inform students of their strengths and weaknesses in a specific academic domain (Snow and Lohman 1988). As standardized tests are thus being increasingly recognized as unsatisfactory (Mislevy, Almond et al. 2004), testing communities have called for more diagnostic information for guiding learning, improving instruction, and evaluating students’ progress.

Teachers are not only interested in taking program-level decisions but are most interested in classroom tests. A test is considered influential when it can help teachers to find a good direction which shows them what to teach. In this respect, Kinsena (1985) states that “without a fundamental awareness of our performances, it is easy to believe that the way we study and learn is the most efficient way and consequently help teachers to diagnose some of their students’ problem” (p.32).

2. Method

2.1 Participants

The participants of the study were 60 English translation students who were studying at Islamic Azad University. All of them were English translation students at B.A. level. Participants who were all junior students had already enrolled in essay writing class. The participants, both female and male students, aged from 19 to 26. Gender and age of the participants were not taken into consideration in this study. They were all Persian native speakers who were learning English as a foreign language. It is worth mentioning that the instructor was the same in both classes. Each group consisted of 30 participants.

2.2 Instrumentation

The instruments which were employed in this study included a homogenizing test to assure homogeneity of the participants of the study, tests of writing which were served as the pretest and post test and a rating scale used for giving scores by the raters.

2.2.1 Homogenizing test

To minimize the individual differences among the participants and to ensure homogeneity, a paper-based TOEFL test, which was a standard test, was used as a reliable and standard criterion. The test was taken from Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL by (Phillips 2005). The first part consisted of 40 items, including 30 instruction and written expression items along with 10 reading comprehension questions, all in multiple choice formats. The second part, however, was TWE (Test of Written English) in which students were supposed to write a five-paragraph essay on a given topic.

2.2.2Pretest, posttest

ALLS 5(1):146-153, 2014 148 The pretest and posttest were consisted of two writing topics for each test. Participants were supposed to write two five-paragraph essays with the length of not less than 150 words and within a time limit of 60 minutes. The topics were adopted from www.ets.org which is the official website of TOEFL organization.

2.2.3 Rating scale

After the administration of the test, the essays were scored by two raters. Both raters used Jacobs et al. s' writing template (1981) called "ESL Composition Scoring Profile".(Jacobs 1981).

2.3 Material

Four sets of diagnostic tests, each consisted of 30 questions were used as the treatment in experimental group. To name few, in each set of these tests, some constructs as comma spliced, dangling structure, conciseness, content as well as coherence along with 25 other constructs were tested. A complete list of these constructs is presented in a table of specification. Four sets of diagnostic tests were adopted from Prenhall website, which is the website of Pearson Higher Education.

2.4 Procedure

As it was mentioned before the aim of this study was to show whether screening learners trough a battery of time-series diagnostic test had any impact on the Iranian EFL learner's writing ability.

The study was conducted on 60 B.A. English translation students of Islamic Azad University North-Tehran Branch. First of all, a homogenizing test was conducted both in experimental group and control group in the first session. After analyzing the result of this test, the number of participants (N=80) turned out to be 60 since nearly those whose scores were within one standard deviation above or below the mean were selected as the participants of this study. Each group consisted of 30 students who were mostly female. After that, in the second session, the participants in the control and experimental groups were asked to write on certain topics, which served to be the pretest to test their initial writing ability. After the administration of the test, the essays were scored by two raters. Both raters used Jacobs et al. s' writing template (1981) called "ESL Composition Scoring Profile".

Jacobs’ et al. (1981) criteria have been researched and found to have construct validity. Construct validity, is the degree to which the scoring instrument is able to distinguish among abilities in what it sets out to measure, and is usually referred to in theoretical terms; in this case, the theoretical construct is ‘‘essay writing ability’’ which the instrument aims to measure.

In the following sessions both experimental and control groups were taught essay writing through current-traditional rhetoric approach at an advanced level. They both worked on different types of essay as well as the mechanics of writing.

The experimental group, however, was exposed to the treatment, which was four sets of time series (screening) diagnostic tests along with their related feedbacks, from the third session.

The first diagnostic test was administered in the third session. The papers were scored by the teacher and weaknesses of each individual were diagnosed. Within the next two sessions the teacher gave appropriate and related feedback to the class in accordance with the weaknesses of the majority. Finding out which points students were weakest at was the responsibility of the teacher himself. The teacher provided the students with related feedback by either teaching those points in the class or through an oral discussion. For example for the following question, according to teachers’ report, 18 students chose letter c and other 12 students selected other letters except letter A which was the correct answer.

Q7: It was her who won the election _ for a new union representative. A B C D

As the table of specification shows the construct under investigation in this item was pronoun case. Accordingly, this point became one of the major concerns of the teacher in the following two sessions to be taught.

The second diagnostic test was held in sixth session, and again after two sessions of instruction the third and fourth tests were held in tenth and thirteenth sessions respectively. No need to mention that the teacher went through the same process of diagnosing and teaching in the following sessions of the treatment.

It is good to mention that the students were aware that every two sessions they were having a test.

Providing any types of feedbacks was completely dependent on the result of each test. In this way not only the result of the test was given to students, but also the teacher made them aware of the problematic areas and enabled them to see how much of the progression they made.

On the other hand, the control group spent 13 sessions just practicing the Current-Traditional Rhetoric approach with no focus on the problematic areas through giving relevant feedback. The main focus of the class went to getting students to know the types of essays and the mechanics of writing while no extra attention was given to the errors they had in their essays and no attempt to solve them.

ALLS 5(1):146-153, 2014 149 At the end, in fifteenth session students in both experimental group and control group were asked to write two other essays, a posttest, with the same characteristics in administrating, scoring, but different topics. It is necessary to point out that the posttest was the same as their final exam. So it can be claimed that they did their best since to them it was a high stake exam.

3. Results

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistic results of the homogenizing test. As the table shows the skewness value turned out to be .181 and the standard error of skewness was .296. The subdivision of skewness by standard error of skewness turned out to be .611 which is between -1.96 and +1.96. Therefore, it can be concluded that the distribution is normal.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of general proficiency test

The following figure shows the normal distribution after homogenizing test

An independent t-test was run to compare the mean scores of the experimental and control groups on the pretest. As displayed in Table 2, two groups were not significantly different since at .05 level of significance for 58 degrees of freedom, the significance 2-tailed was .917 which is higher than .005. Table 2. Independent Samples Test

Thus it can be claimed that the two groups were homogenous in terms of their writing ability prior to the administration of time series (screening) diagnostic tests. The descriptive statistics for the two groups are displayed in table 3.

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Error of Mean

Std. Deviation

Variance Skewness Std. Error of Skewness

80 12.00 69.00 36.30 1.26 1.13 127.833 .181 .269

Levene's Test for Equality of Variance

t-test for equality of means

F Sig. t df Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Difference

Std. Error Difference

95% Confidence interval of the Difference Lower Upper

PRETEST

Equal variances assumed

.370 .545 .104 58 .917 .07842 .75229 -1.42745 1.58429

Equal variances not assumed

.105

57.947 .917 .07842 .74980 -1.42249 1.57933

ALLS 5(1):146-153, 2014 150 Table 3. Descriptive Statistics Pretest GROUP N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean PRETEST Experimental 30 12.9655 2.76112 .51273

Control 30 12.8871 3.04606 .54709 In order to test the null hypothesis, an independent t-test was run to compare the mean scores of the experimental and control groups on the posttest. Table 4. Independent t-test Posttest Levene's Test

for Equality of Variance

t-test for equality of means

F Sig. t df Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Difference

Std. Error Difference

95% Confidence interval of the Difference Lower Upper

POSTTEST Equal

variances assumed

.637 .428 3.605 58 .001 2.38543 .66169 1.06092 3.70994

Equal variances not assumed

3.616 57.966 .001 2.38543 .65963 1.06502 3.70584

As displayed in table 4, two groups were significantly different since at .05 level of significance for 58 degrees of freedom the significance 2-tailed was .001, which is lower than .005.Thus it can be claimed that there was a significant difference between the two groups' mean scores on the posttest.

As shown in table 5, the experimental group with a mean of 14.7241 outperformed the control group whose mean was 12.3387. Based on these results it can be concluded that the null-hypothesis that administering time series (screening) diagnostic tests does not optimize the writing ability of the Iranian EFL learners is rejected. The administration of time series (screening) diagnostic tests had improved the writing ability of the experimental group. The descriptive statistics for the two groups are displayed in table 5.

Table 5. Descriptive Statistics Posttest

GROUP N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean POSTTEST Experimental 30 14.7241 2.43701 .45254

Control 30 12.3387 2.67204 .47991 To prove that the experimental group outperformed the control group on the posttest does not guarantee that the control group has not improved on the posttest compared with its mean score on the pretest.

In order to make sure that there is no significant difference between the pretest and posttest mean scores of the control group, a paired t-test was run. The statistical results are shown in table6.

Table 6. Paired Samples Statistics

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

Pair 1 precontrol 12.8333 30 3.08314 .56290

postcontrol 12.2167 30 2.62837 .47987 As displayed in table 4.7, there was no significant change regarding writing ability of the control group, since the post- independent test at significance level of .05 at 29 degrees of freedom the significance 2-tailed was .335 which was higher than .005. Therefore the existing difference is not statistically significant.

Table 7. Paired Samples Test Paired Differences t df Sig.

(2-tailed)

Mean Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower Upper Pair

1 precontrol -

postcontrol .61667 1.04232 .20856 .19012 1.04321 .93 29 .355

ALLS 5(1):146-153, 2014 151 A paired sample statistic was also calculated in order to make a comparison within the experimental group. The means of this group in both pretest and posttest were compared with each other. As displayed in Table 4.8, the mean score of experimental group in pretest was compared with its mean score in posttest. The result was that the experimental group with the mean of 14.7667 in the posttest outperformed the pretest with the mean of 13.0167. Table 8. Paired Samples Statistics

Mean N Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Pair 1 preex 13.0167 30 2.72752 .49797

postex 14.7667 30 2.40593 .43926

As displayed in table 9 there was a significant difference between the performance of the experimental group on the pretest and posttest. The post independent t-test at the significant level of .05 for 29 degrees of freedom, the significance 2-tailed was .000 which was lower than .005 and therefore the existing difference is statistically significant. Thus, it can be claimed that there was a significant difference between the pretest and posttest mean scores of the experimental group. As a result the improvement in the experimental group can be attributed to the treatment, which in this study was a set of time series diagnostic tests. Table 9. Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences t df Sig. (2-

tailed) Mean Std.

Deviation

Std. Error Mean

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower Upper Pair

1 preex - postex

-1.75000

1.32450

.24182 -2.24458 -1.25542 -7.237 29 .000

3.1 Inter-rater reliability As displayed in Table 10, there is a high degree of consistency in the judgment of the raters in pretest. r = .80

Table 10. Inter-rater Reliability RAT2

RAT1 Pearson Correlation .804 (*)

Sig. (2-tailed) .000

N 60 *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

As displayed in Table 11 there is a high degree of consistency in the judgment of the raters. r = .84

RAT2

RAT1 Pearson Correlation .842(*)

Sig. (2-tailed) .000

N 60

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

ALLS 5(1):146-153, 2014 152

4. Discussion In this study, the researcher concluded that administering time series diagnostic (screening) tests had statistically significant impact on the improvement of the writing ability of Iranian intermediate level EFL learners. The experience of using time-series diagnostic tests for university-level students was helpful in the way that both students and teachers were exposed to the real writing ability which takes both strong and weak points of students into consideration. Screening, as shown in this research, requires that teachers have a constant eye on the progress of students to find where they have problems and to resolve them since they could not successfully commit individually. The teacher’s initial role always is to diagnose which points to emphasize more and also provide feedback for. The result of the current study supported the previous ones’(Alderson and Banerjee 2001, Ishii and Schmitt 2009) in terms of using diagnostic tests for making both teaching and learning more effective. For example, (Ishii and Schmitt 2009) investigated the effect of an integrated diagnostic test of vocabulary on the vocabulary learning of students and concluded that in this way, it is possible to diagnose any weak areas of the learners’ vocabulary knowledge in advance and as a result a principled way of treating these deficiencies can be used. Due to practical limitations in randomization the number of students participating in this study was relatively small (30 in experimental group and 30 in control group). Additionally, treatment had focused only on one skill, i.e. writing, while the participants my benefit from this method in other three language skills like speaking. Moreover, the study was not a longitudinal one since the whole took only one semester with 15 sessions. If this method included in educational schedules, might empower the subjects with an insight into the language they are learning. In addition, it provides a means of self-monitoring different from what is common in writing classes. Unlike the other types of tests, the present diagnostic test has the potential to be far superior, because the weaknesses and inadequacies of individuals are caught and dealt with by the teacher. Perhaps the most effective use of this method is to report the performance level on each writing element to the teacher and each student so that they can decide how and where to most profitably invest their time and energy. It would also be useful to report the average performance level for each class on each objective to the teacher along with indicative of which students have particular strengths or weaknesses of each objective (Brown 2005). For reaching to effective results, the instructor must view teaching as a process of developing and enhancing students’ ability to learn. The instructor’s role is not just to teach some preplanned materials, but to serve as a facilitator for learning by providing relevant feedback regarding students’ weaknesses. This may also result in increasing confidence of students. Another study may be done to explore the impact of the method on the improvement of the other language skills, listening, reading and speaking as well as language components with beginners and advanced learners. Promoting the motivation and attitudes of EFL learners toward the writing skill, the effect of the same method in a longitudinal research, and the role of gender on the performance of both groups may lead to different results. Olshtain as cited by(Celce-Murcia 1991) believed that writing, as a communicative activity requires to be encouraged and nurtured during the language learners’ course of study. While the most important thing during a course is to identify weak points of learners and to remove them, Alderson (2005) suggests that diagnostic tests should be used to identify strengths and weaknesses in learners’ use of language and focus on specific elements rather than global abilities. In writing area, few diagnostic assessments are specifically designed for providing diagnostic feedback (Alderson, 2005; Gorin, 2007). Therefore, there is a great need for a diagnostic test that helps both teachers and learners to find out their source of errors then eliminate those problems. References Alderson, J. C. and J. Banerjee (2001). "Language testing and assessment (Part I)." Language Teaching, 34(04): 213-236. Alderson, J. C., et al. (1995). Language Test Construction and Evaluation, Cambridge University Press.

ALLS 5(1):146-153, 2014 153 Brown, J. D. (2005). Testing In Language Programs: A Comprehensive Guide To English Language Assessment, Prentice Hall Regents. Brown, J. D. and T. Hudson (2002). Criterion-Referenced Language Testing, Cambridge University Press. Celce-Murcia, M. (1991). "Grammar Pedagogy in Second and Foreign Language Teaching." TESOL Quarterly, 25(3): 459-480. Edelenbos, p. and J. D. Jong (2003). "Vreemdetalenonderwijs in Nederland:Een situatieschets [Foreign language teaching in the Netherlands: a situational sketch]." Enschede: NaB-MVT. Harris, D. P. (1969). Testing English as a second language, McGraw-Hill. Hilton, C. and M. Hyder (1995). Getting to Grips with Writing, Golden Books Centre. Ishii, T. and N. Schmitt (2009). "Developing an integrated diagnostic test of vocabulary size and depth." RELC Journal, 40(1): 5-22. Jacobs, H. L. (1981). Testing ESL Composition: A Practical Approach, Newbury House. Kinsena,L., (1985). The effect of mode-discourse on student writing performance: implications for policy. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 8(2),147–154. Madsen, D. (1983). Successful dissertations and theses, Jossey-Bass. McDonough, S. (1985). "Academic writing practice." ELT Journal, 39(4): 244-247. Mislevy, R. J., et al. (2004). A Brief Introduction to Evidence-centered Design, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, Center for the Study of Evaluation, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Phillips, D. (2005). Longman Preparation Course for the TOEFL Test: Next Generation IBT ; [with Answer Key], Pearson Education. Richards, J. C. and W. A. Renandya (2002). Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice, Cambridge University Press. Sako, S. (1969). "Writing Proficiency and Achievement Tests." TESOL Quarterly, 3(3): 237-249. Snow, R. E. and D. E. Lohman (1988). Implications of Cognitive Psychology for Educational Measurement, Stanford University, CERAS. Truscott, J. (1996). "The Case Against Grammar Correction in L2 Writing Classes." Language Learning, 46(2): 327-369. Wilkinson, A. M. (1980). Assessing language development, Oxford University Press.



The Timelessness of Art as Epitomized in Shelley’s Ozymandias

Krishna Daiya

Government Engineering College, Rajkot E-mail: [email protected]


Percy Bysshe Shelley was a poet whose name itself is a Metaphor for exquisite, rhythmic poetry laden with images of Nature as well as Man. He possesses the magical power of transporting the reader into an alternative world with the unique use of metaphors and imagery. His personal sadness was translated into sweet songs that are echoed in the entire world defying all boundaries and straddles. One of the most renowned works of Shelley, Ozymandias is a sonnet that challenges the claims of the emperors and their empires that they are going to inspire generations to come. It glorifies the timelessness of art. The all-powerful Time ruins everything with its impersonal, indiscriminate and destructive power. Civilisations and empires are wiped out from the surface of the earth and forgotten but there is something that outlasts these things and that is art. Eternity can be achieved by the poet’s words, not by the ruler’s will to dominate.

Keywords: Art, Civilizations, Empires, Eternity, Time

1. Introduction

The period from the last decade of the eighteenth century to the opening decades of the nineteenth century is an era of revolutionary social changes in all fields, economic, political, religious and literary. In England, the older economy of agriculture and domestic handicrafts gradually gave way to industry. Parallel to that, between 1776 and 1832, the writings of the French intellectuals began to be freely circulated in England. There was also the American example in setting up a constitution without hereditary legislators. The French Revolution (1789-99) and War with France (1793) changed the very fabric of the European society, including the English Society.

2. Influence of Social Changes on Literature

The ideals of the French Revolution had kindled the flame of hope in writers like Wordsworth and Coleridge. They were thrilled with the ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and hailed the new era with a lot of joy and enthusiasm. This was reflected in their poetry. But each revolution and each movement has its own ebb and flow. It has a wave-like structure with the Rise, Climax and Fall. The failure of the French Revolution led to disappointment and dejection. The ardour and eagerness of the poets and their poetry faded into despair and disillusionment. The younger writers like Leigh Hunt, Shelley and Keats still adhered to the doctrines of the French Revolution, but the warmth of the earlier days had disappeared.

3. Literary Conditions of the Time

In the Literature of this era, we come across a consistent strain, and that is Return to Nature. The literary output was abundant and excels even that of the Elizabethan Literature. There were new ideas and fresh inspiration. The prose of this Age heralds the rejuvenation of the Essay. Many novels and a lot of critical and miscellaneous works were written. The poetry is marked with Romanticism, Nature and Imagination.

4. Percy Bysshe Shelley

A free spirit, a loving human being and an exceptional poet with an extraordinary imagination, Percy Bysshe Shelley breathed fresh ideas and spectacular descriptions in his lyrical dramas, long poems and short poems. He also wrote critical works. Though born with a silver spoon in his mouth, his life was full of misfortunes arising out of the displeasure of parents, University and society. He was expelled by University due to his pamphlet entitled “The Necessity of Atheism”. He was called “Mad Shelley”. However, his poetry derived beauty out of his sad thoughts:

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know.

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,

ALLS 5(1):154-156, 2014 155 The world should listen then-

As I am listening now. (Shelley’s To a Skylark)

5. Ozymandias

One of the most well-known and oft-anthologised works of Shelley, Ozymandias is a sonnet that defies the claims of the emperors and their empires that they are going to inspire generations to come and glorifies the timelessness of art. It was first published in January 11th, 1818 Issue of The Examiner in London under the penname Glirastes. It was later incorporated in Shelley’s collection Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems in 1826. After his death, it was included in a posthumous compilation of his poems published in 1826.

6. Inspiration

The sonnet was inspired by the announcement of the British Museum’s acquisition of a large fragment of a statue of Ramesses II from the thirteenth century BC. Ozymandias is an alternative name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. In 1816, the Italian adventurer Giovanni Battista Belzoni recovered the 7.25 ton fragment of the statue’s head and torso from the mortuary temple of Ramesses at Thebes.

It is believed by scholars that the description of the statue motivated Shelley to write a poem on it. Hence, the inspiration is more verbal, rather than visual. Shelley wrote the poem in friendly competition with his friend and fellow poet Horace Smith, who also write a sonnet on the topic. Horace’s sonnet was also published in The Examiner a few weeks after Shelleys’.

The sonnet also seems to have its roots in the text by the Roman-era historian Didorus Siculus, who described the statue of Ozymandias. Didorus reports the inscription on the statue:

King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work.

7. Title of the Poem

‘Ozymandias’ is the name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. It also represents a transliteration into Greek of a part of Ramesses’ throne name User-maat-re Setep-en-re. The word ‘Ozymandias’ also appears in the inscription on the base of the statue, given by Didorus Siculus.

Shelley chose the name ‘Ozymandias’ in place of ‘Ramesses II’ probably because it is associated with the Greek civilization. This leads to the sharing of cultures between the two greatest civilizations of the western world, Greek and Egyptian. Aaron Biterman says,

Ozy comes from the Greek ‘ozium’ which means to breathe, or air. Mandias comes from the Greek ‘mandate’, which means to rule. (Biterman 2000).

Connecting this to Shelley’s poem, Biterman adds,

Hence, Ozymandias is simply a ‘ruler of air’, or a ‘ruler of nothing’. It is then obvious that the king of kings spoken of in the poem is actually Nature itself. (Biterman 2000)

8. The Timelessness of Art

The masterful sonnet has an elusive, sidelong approach to its subject. The poem begins with the word ‘I’ that hastens to fade away in favour of a traveller who comes from an antique land. The wayfarer then takes up the narration. “The two vast and trunkless legs of stone” without the torso in the strange, desolate landscape described by the explorer introduce us to the ruins of a vast empire. The visage is half-sunk in sand and shattered, describing the time’s ruinous force.

Shelley then brings up the facial expression. There is the “Frown, / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command.” The “cold command” is the symbol of the tyrannical empire building ruler.

The focus now shifts from the explorer to the sculptor. He becomes the mediating figure as he communicates the tyrant’s passions hidden beneath the cold exterior. The ruler has this insatiable urge to conquer the world and bring it under his control and power. The sculptor “well those passions read” and these intense emotions are reflected in his work, the statue. The artist’s mockery lies in his depiction of Ozymandias in the statue. “The heart that fed” refers to the sculptor’s own fervent way of nourishing himself on his project.

The sestet shifts our attention from the shattered statue to its pedestal with the inscription:

My name is Ozymandias, King of kings. Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair. (Ozymandias)

The irony of the situation is that around the statue no works are visible. It is just a vast desert wasteland. The kings that Ozymandias challenges must be the rival rulers of the countries that he has enslaved. The pedestal stands in the middle

ALLS 5(1):154-156, 2014 156 of an infinite empty space, described by two phrases: “boundless and bare”, and “lone and level”. The pharaoh’s political will that led him to conquer lands has bore no fruit. His life work is as barren and empty as the vast expanse.

The once great king’s proud boast has been reduced to dust. His works have crumbled and disappeared. The all-powerful Time ruins everything with its impersonal, indiscriminate and destructive power. Thus, the statue becomes an epitome of the ephemeral political power and of pride and hubris of all humanity.

However, a glaring contrast to these ruins of a great empire is provided by a work of art and a group of words. Civilisations and empires are wiped out from the surface of the earth and forgotten but there is something that outlasts these things and that is art. Eternity can be achieved by the poet’s words, not by the ruler’s will to dominate.

9. Form

‘Ozymandias’ is a sonnet, a fourteen line poem written in Iambic Pentameter. It is not strictly a Petrarchan sonnet. However, it interlinks the Octave (the first eight lines) with the Sestet (the last six lines) by gradually replacing the old rhymes with the new ones. The Rhyme Scheme is ABABACDC EDEFEF.

10 Imagery & Metaphors

The entire poem is devoted to a single metaphor: the shattered, ruined statue in the desert wasteland, with its arrogant, passionate face and inscription. It becomes a metaphor for the fallen and destroyed dream of the powerful, cruel ruler and the ironic and hollow words etched onto the statue’s base.

Shelley’s use of imagery reconstructs the figure of the “King of kings”. At first, the two legs are described, then the “shattered visage”, and then the face itself with it’s “frown / And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command.” The sculptor then comes alive in front of our mind’s eye. We are able to imagine the living man sculpting a live king, whose face bore the expression of patience. The image of the desert, boundless and bare, with the lone and level sands stretching far away, demolishes the picture of the mighty king who boasted of his works.

11. Narration

Shelley uses the technique of Distanced Narration. The sonnet is framed as a story told to the speaker by a traveller. This adds obscurity to the position of Ozymandias. Neither the reader nor the narrator has seen the statue. Even the narrator hears it from someone else who has seen it. Thus, the ancient king is rendered even less commanding. It absolutely undermines his power.

12. Conclusion

Shelley’s poetic rendering of the legend of Ozymandias is even more memorable than the original story itself. It is also an emphatic political statement indicating the cruel and destructive nature of the empires of man and their outcomes. This beautiful sonnet outlasts the so-called mighty empires based on control and terror. These empires get eroded and destroyed leading to disintegration of civilization and culture. However, neither time nor distance can obliterate the works of art making the artist immortal.

References

Biterman, A. (2000). Analysis of Ozymandias." Personal web page. Analysis of Ozymandias. Dec. 2000. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. http://chelm.freeyellow.com/ozymandias1.html.

Glirastes (Percy Bysshe Shelley), (1818). Original Poetry. Ozymandias”. The Examiner, A Sunday Paper, on politics, domestic economy and theatricals for the year 1818 (p. 24). London: John Hunt.

Shelley, P. B. (1826). Ozymandias" in Miscellaneous and Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (p.100). London: W. Benbow.

Shelley, P. B. (1876). Ozymandias”. Reprinted in Rosalind and Helen - Edited, with notes by H. Buxton Forman, and printed for private distribution (p. 72). London: Hollinger.

Shelley, P. B. (1820). To a Skylark. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174413.



From a Post-traumatic Culture toward the Cultural Trauma of Post-9/11

Roya Jabarouti (Corresponding author)

Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, University Putra Malaysia E-mail: [email protected]

ManiMangai Mani

Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, University Putra Malaysia


Over the past decade, the impact of the terroristic attacks of September 11, 2001 on American culture has been the prominent subject of various discussions. This has led to a large body of theoretical and experimental works known as ‘post-9/11’, which provides evidence for what Smelser’s believes to be the cultural trauma of 9/11. This study sets out to present a review of post 9/11 literature, with the perspective of cultural trauma as suggested by Neil J. Smelser, to provide a comprehensive understanding of this collective experience. This analysis highlights the role of the historical background and socio-cultural context in the establishment of cultural trauma. It also indicates the social agents and cultural elements that contributed to the embeddedness and spread of this phenomenon among the Americans. Finally, it indicates the most prominent collective response of the Americans, and as its consequences. Keywords: Post-traumatic Culture, Cultural Trauma, post-9/11, collective coping, collective memory and collective identity 1. Introduction No event has ever been so widely broadcasted as the terroristic attacks on the World Trade Center of New York, on September 11, 2001. When at 8:46, the plane entered the North tower, no one believed that it had been just the beginning of a new era in the American cultural history. However, in only seventeen minutes, when the second crash occurred, not only Americans but also the population of the whole world realized they were at the beginning of post-9/11 epoch. With no hesitant, at 1:00 pm, President Bush officially declared it: "Make no mistake, the U.S. government will hunt down and punish those responsible. […] We will show the world that we will pass this test" (Base, 2001, p. 235). Trauma for majority of the people came later, when they watched the news. The attacks were soon translated into words and numbers, and announced as the cause for landing 3,949 American airplanes, and the reason for the heaviest traffic jam within the memory of America (Huser, 2004, p. 3) . Americans heard over and over that 2983 people were killed in less than two hours in America: 19 hijackers, 246 passengers, 2603 people on the ground or in the attacked buildings, and about 20 missing. Yet, the widespread trauma did not only threaten Americans, over ninety countries around the world had their citizen among the casualties, and Muslims were alienated ever after. After that day, traffic jam could cause anxiety and getting on the plane could bring shame. TV images, movies, books, paintings and talks changed their topic; a new culture arose after 9/11 and continued to spread until today. While the casualties are not comparable to those of Holocaust and Hiroshima, 9/11 attacks remained among the most documented and broadcasted events in the history and became the experience that continued to traumatize individuals and collectivities at both psychological and cultural level. Post-9/11 literature provides evidence for what Smelser’s believes to be the cultural trauma of 9/11. This study, offers a review on the literature written since the rise of the event by socio-cultural scholars. This review uses the theoretical perspective of Smelser’s cultural trauma theory to presents a comprehensive understanding of the studies over this collective experience. This analysis highlights the role of the historical background and the socio-cultural context in the establishment of cultural trauma. It also indicates the interference of the social agents and cultural carriers in the prolonged, contested process of establishing this trauma, as well as in embedding and spreading it Americans. Finally, it indicates the most prominent collective response of the Americans, and as its immediate consequences 2. From Trauma to Trauma Theory Although in the Greek roots, the term ‘trauma’ refers to a physical injury, it was soon applied to describe a mental damage. Trauma, as concept, became clinically well-known with the invention of railway in the late eighteenth century and the examination of the passengers who were involved in a railway accident (Caruth, 1995, p. 3). Yet, as a theory, it initiates from the clinical studies of Sigmund Freud and Breuer in their exploration of the relationship between trauma

ALLS 5(1):157-163, 2014 158 and hysteria, during the decade between 1888 and 1898 (Smelser, 2004, p. 32). It is this focus that Smelser much appreciates for its contribution to the understanding of the process of cultural trauma and the establishment of cultural trauma theory (2004, p. 32). The clinical studies of trauma gained and regained significance in the psychological examinations of the soldiers returning from World Wars, until it was officially known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The term PTSD interred the 1980 edition of the Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, in the United States (Caruth, 1995, p. 3). Cathy Caruth, one of the major theorist of Psychological Trauma after Freud, and the one who pioneered in its conceptualization, describes this landmark as “a renew interest in the problem of trauma” (1995, p. 3). Caruth added the elements of deconstruction into her theories of psychoanalytic trauma in the case of Holocaust. She describes psychological trauma as an overwhelming, shocking experience, to which an individual responses uncontrollably and with notable delay (Caruth, 1996, p. 11). With regards to Holocaust, LaCapra, distinguished between “acting out” and “working through” as the stages of recovery from the psychological trauma (LaCapra, 2001, p. 21). Nevertheless, within a few years, the concept of trauma become a major concern in the domain of historical, Marxist, and linguistic studies through the philosophical approaches of such scholars as Benjamin, Adorno, Derrida and their contemporaries. Clear from the subtleties of the above approaches, the theory of trauma shrinks back to a therapeutic strategy, which is currently employed clinically. When the term and the theory of trauma interred the cultural context, it added to previous load of ambiguities over the source and the process of trauma development. Doubts over the possibility of any relationship between psychological and cultural trauma triggered such questions as: Is cultural trauma the same as collective form of psychological trauma? When we speak of cultural trauma, should we really expect catastrophic event to be actually experienced? Can the cultural trauma be worked out once and forever? These questions and many other uncertainties over the status, procedure and cure of cultural trauma demanded an independent effort toward a development of cultural trauma theory by the scholars. This new academic interest, contributed to the current raise in the studies related to the development of trauma among the mass culture of American society, until the attacks of 9/11/2001 paved way for a new domain and perspective of trauma studies. Smelser proclaims that a collective trauma is established within a prolonged, contested process in a socio-culture that is historically and structurally vulnerable and prepared for the establishment of cultural trauma. When established, it exerts claims on the membership and the collective identity of the members (2004, p.43). Neal adds that a cultural trauma occurs when the assumptions of the community about the continuity of their collective life have been shaken (2004, p. 4). Based on Smelser’s definition of cultural trauma, the society must be historically and culturally trauma prone, before and at the time the traumatically potential event occurs. Moreover, the memory of the event needs to be established as culturally traumatic among the public. It means that, it should associate the collective experience with a negative affect and be regarded as an indelible scar or a threat to the society’s fundamental cultural values (2004, p. 44). It can be concluded that, a cultural trauma can disrupt the identity as it can strengthen it. This explains why in literature of social-cultural trauma, the three concepts of collective trauma, collective memory and collective identity are always presented in relation with one another. After all, cultural trauma can be officially defined as:

A memory accepted and publically given credence by a relevant membership group and evoking an event or situation which is a) laden with negative affect b) represented as indelible, and c) regarded as threatening a society’s existence or violating one or more of its fundamental cultural presuppositions. (Smelser, 2004, p. 44)

3. Post-traumatic Cultural Heritage Smelser makes a radical shift in proposing a definition for the cultural trauma by saying that: “No discrete historical event or situation automatically or necessarily qualifies in itself as cultural trauma, and the range of the events or situations that may become cultural trauma is enormous” (Smelser, 2004, p. 35). The distinction of this proposition is in its emphasis on the fact that although some historically catastrophic experiences have registered themselves as traumatic in the public perception, they were not automatically traumatic by nature. Sztompka in his study on the impact of the rapid changes of society on the creation of cultural trauma provides an endless list of potentially traumatic events (Sztompka, 2004, p. 156). All the same, Smelser asserts that not all of them necessarily lead to historically established cultural traumas, and still a lot more items can be added to this list (Smelser, 2004, p. 35). Hence, the context of a society should be historically and structurally prepared, or “Trauma prone” (Smelsr, 2004, p. 36) in order be able to establish a cultural trauma. In the complex contemporary American life, trauma is likely to appear as both a psychological and cultural syndrome. From a historical perspective, the long existence of a “post-traumatic mood” (Farrell, 1998, p. 2) makes the commonest sense in America, after experiencing the worldwide catastrophes of the century. The direct experience of the Great Depression, the leading role of America in World War II, followed by the promises of tranquility that were invaded by the inauguration of the Cold War, and many other unresolved wars led by the American government around the globe, directly affected the society of America. A second formidable list could also be initiated with the assassination of the President Kennedy. This includes such human catastrophes as Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as comparably minor experiences, such as riots, scandals, financial wreckages, and crises between huge economic forces that tended to “split the society in two” (Farrell, 1998, p. 2). These splits for the younger generation are still terrifying downward experiences, and backward, to the darker memories of Vietnam. This is what Farrell designates as the American mood before September 2001, and further describes to be “belated, epiphenomenal, the outcome of cumulative stress” (1998, p. 3). The trace of all the

ALLS 5(1):157-163, 2014 159 catastrophes had remained like a gash in the collective memory of the American society. The pre-9/11 mood mirrors a long-term damage into the body of collective trust, and 9/11 was just another reminder: ‘even we can die’. In a very interesting introduction to his essay on the American psyche after 9-11, Walter A. Davis relates an anecdote: Gandhi offers “a way out of hell” (2003, p. 127) to a Hindu man who has killed a Muslim child, and still hears echoes of this traumatic experience. Davis also proclaims that he knows the roots of the traumatic hell into which American society has fallen since September 11 2001. He points out that neither the shattering images that framed the consciousness of America, nor the anxiety that these memories arouse were enough to establish this national trauma. The basis of this collective hell was, in fact, established back on 6/8/1945 in Hiroshima (2003, p. 127), and the Hisroshimas. The images of a plane approaching the towers, the falling bodies of men and women in the horribly dark sky, the terrified fleeing crowd, and the increasing figures of the dead and the buried alive innocents, all very much resembled what Americans once heard or watched happening to other nations. The attacks of 9/11/2001, for a few minutes, made America experience what it had been like being in Hiroshima more than fifty-five years ago. America realized the images of burning-to-ash Japanese town, burring-to-death citizens, and “walking dead” survivors in an American nightmare ever after (Davis, 2003, p. 127). 4. Cultural Trauma of Post-9/11 4.1 Cultural System According to Smelser, a system is the necessary vulnerable context into which cultural trauma can penetrate. In psychological trauma, the private system of ‘personality’ is open to outside damage by internalizing it through memories. The process of cultural trauma creation also requires a system, which can be defined in relation to the social system. (2004, p. 37). Social system indicates “the organization of social relations in society; its main units are social roles and institutions, and these are normally classified along functional lines- economic institutions, legal institutions, medical institutions, educational institutions, family institutions- though the idea frequently includes systems of ranking (stratification) into social classes, racial and ethical groups, and so on” (Smelser, 2004, p. 37). Therefore, social events can be regarded as a social trauma as long as they really shake the foundations of an organized society. The Great Depression, for example, can be regarded as a social trauma since it handicapped the function of economic, political and even political institutions in many societies in 1930s. America has a widespread reputation for multi-culturalism. It has been the home to and the dreamland of people from variety of religious and cultural background. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the context of the American society in terms of unity and coherence between its sub-cultures. It becomes even more significant, by realizing that “the victims of the ground”, that is, those who were inside the attacked building, were from 60 countries, and spoke in 24 different languages (Boss et al., 2003, p. 456). As studies later unfolded, many of American Muslim citizens had already been through ambiguity and loss of identity in America. The U.S., their new homeland, had considerably confronted them with the issues of racism, discrimination, etc. Therefore, despite the general conformity to the expectations of the American culture, it is difficult to think that the members of this sub-culture had constructed tight, meaningful relationship with the rest of the society. The evidence is that after the attacks, what they all sorely yearned for was a reunion with their families in their homeland, and not those whom they called “strangers” in America. This situation became a challenge (Boss et al., 2003, p. 458) for the therapists who tried to help them (Boss et al., 2003, p. 460). Although America had developed a world-known habit of antagonism with Muslims and Islamic traditions, before September 11 2001, American Muslims could still enjoy the advantages of their citizenship. But 9/11, as it is now called, was a zero point in the history of America for all its citizens, notably Muslims; they a realized a “dramatic loss of identity and meaning, a tear in the social fabric” (Abu-Ras et al, 2013, p. 16). The cultural ties that Muslim Americans had with their society were torn down by what followed the event, to the extent that they continued their life in America struggling with a new phenomenon as “Islamophobia” (Abu-Ras et al, 2013, p. 16). 4.2 Laying the Language of Affect Culture is a system which includes “a grouping of elements –values, norms, outlooks, beliefs, ideologies, knowledge, and empirical assertions (not always verified), linked with one another to some degree as a meaning-system” (Smelser, 2004, p. 37). In a national society, for example, culture is defined in relation to national references with various levels of unity and coherence, which respectively refer to the consensus of all the sub-cultures, and the tightness of logical relations between the cultural elements. In this respect, Smelser defines cultural trauma as “an invasive and overwhelming event that is believed to undermine or overwhelm one or several essential ingredients of a culture or the culture as a whole” (p. 38). Therefore, for instance, the Protestant Reformation can be regarded as a cultural trauma since it undermined the dominancy and coherence of Catholics; the nineteenth century colonialism can also be regarded as cultural trauma, because it imposed the western cultural values on the cultural integrity of the colonized societies. The cultural situation of the migrant communities can be trauma prone in the face of cultural dominancy of the host community. However, some events are psychologically, socially and culturally intrusive enough to encourage all types of trauma, if not simultaneously, with little time span from each other. The Great Depression of the 1930, which as discussed above, shook the foundation of the social institutions, can also be considered as culturally traumatic as it threaten the integrity of capitalism. There is no doubt that the symbolic damage that this atrocity made to the American identity was far more destructive than its social, political, economic damage. In fact, in comparison to such catastrophes as Hiroshima, Holocaust or Cambodia, the literal damage of the attacks was miniscule. What distinguishes this event is its symbolism. The planes,

ALLS 5(1):157-163, 2014 160 in fact, assaulted the American symbols of power, modernity and identity (Redfield, 2007, p. 56), which magnified their destructive power. Still, the responses and the mechanism that America chose to deal with this situation became even far symbolic and magnifying. As discussed previously, a widespread symbolic language of affect in a society clues to the occurrence of cultural trauma. In fact, interchange of negative emotions among individuals, links between the private psychological trauma and the collective one (Smelser, 2004, p. 42). Anxiety, since Freud, has been recognized as the commonest negative response to the traumatic situations (Smelser, 2004, p. 39). Moreover, anxiety is a universal language that effectively communicates the threat among the individuals around the globe. In the visual society of America, images, whether static or animated, play a significant role in creating, spreading and maintaining affect. Image, according to Davis, is “the language of anxiety, the language psyche uses in an effort to mediate the emotional and psychological impact of events” (Davis, 2003, p. 128). It closely resembles the fragmented language of dream with its unpredictable links and sudden changes, which, through the lens of psychology arises in the agony of the psyche. Put it differently, image is the language of the subconscious and a “concrete way to embody and mediate its pain” (Davis, 2003, p. 128). On the other hand, as Heidegger proclaims, images have “a revelatory power” that is far more salient than the language of the concept (Heideggar, 1927, p. 179). It is an undeniable fact that the attacks of September 2001 of the New York were translated, to the images that were widely broadcasted around the world. However, Davis regards “Ground Zero”, as a central image that endowed and mediated a range of negative meanings to the event. “Ground Zero”, which is now the name for the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York, is originally a military term. The non-capitalized term, ground zero, was coined to designate the zero point for the first Atomic Bomb. Symbolically enough, it was later used to calculate epicenter of the Atomic Bombs that targeted Hiroshima. Davis argues that the capitalized term creates an image and, in fact, opens the way into a hidden anxiety. On one hand, it capitalizes an image of wholeness and invulnerability for a nation seeking to reconstruct its identity. On the other hand, it hides a murderous past and denies the fact that this is just another ground zero (Redfield, 2007, p. 62). Deep in, it points out to the anxiety of a nation: “the fragments shored against” our “ruins” (Davis, 2003, p. 128). Overall, the image keeps haunting the American society, making it impossible for Americans to work out the trauma once and forever. Although the events of 9/11/2001 were unpredictable and overwhelming enough to shatter American society, the images and the language used immediately by many of the social agents, whom Smelser knows as the “carriers” of cultural trauma, obviously “made [the attacks] to be [tremendously] remembered” (Smelser, 2004, p. 36), not only in America, but also elsewhere in the world. In order for a historical event to be registered as a cultural trauma, several other outer elements and agencies are involved. While in the psychological trauma the “intra-psychic dynamics of defense, adaptation, coping and working through” are the engaged mechanisms, in the cultural trauma, the “social agencies and the contending groups” (Smelser, 2004, p. 39) are at work to establish and maintain it. 4.3 Indelibility and Claims of membership The next and the most necessary step for the maintenance of cultural trauma, is to ensure its embeddedness and recurrence among the collectivity. In this respect, Redfield directs the attention to the names given to the event. “September 11” and the numerical form “9/11” rose from the mass media immediately after the attacks and remained as the only names used to refer to the events, making them “endlessly and unavoidably available” worldwide. In a society no less verbal, than visual, “9/11 discourse” penetrated into everyday cultural life, reliving trauma every time they are repeated. The terms have created a blockage by turning the event to a zero point at time, and also by metasizing their symbolism. For Redfiled it is acceptable to think that a consumerist public and politicians with military tendencies would prefer to establish this scar as indelible and non-healable at the body culture of their society. In fact this nations finds it rather impossible to find any practical mechanism for actual grieving (56). The role of the carries becomes significant not only in the establishment of the cultural trauma, but also in its persistence; since, as discussed above, a historical situation is regarded as culturally traumatic only as long as it is remembered, or made to be maintain its status as such. Carries, now, have the responsibility to “continuously and actively” (Smelser, 2004, p. 38) revive and restore this status. The names used to refer to the event, increasingly add to its traumatic affect by distancing from the reality and the truth behind it. The name September 11, without any other supplementary tag, acquires a substantial rhetorical power that contributes to its affect in various ways. “Imperatively and imperialistically”, the term September 11, “presupposes and demands knowledge” of the event, from its speakers and listeners, implying that everything changed that day (Redfield, 2007, p. 58). The reduced form, 9/11 contains a lot more forces in addition to its emptiness. From 1987 when Reagan called September 11 “the Emergency Telephone Number Day”, until September 11 2001, the day was officially known and celebrated to “promote safety awareness”. Finally after a series of changes, on September 4 2002, Bush established the name “Patriot Day” and ignored the 316 victims who were not Americans (Redfield, 2007, p. 58). The terms, has been overtly used by the American press and mass media, and has continued to provoke a patriotic sentimentalism, or what Davis calls “patriotic gore” (Davis, 2003, p. 129) and confirms otherness of the Non-Americans. Smelser believes what powered Americans in all their attempts ranging from, denial, to resistance and violence towards Muslim Americans, whom Americans regarded as “they”, was an increasing sense of defending and the loyalty to America, their homeland (Smelser, 2004, p. 277).

ALLS 5(1):157-163, 2014 161 4.4 Identity Disrupting/solidifying Davis considers an ideal implication for the events, one that mourning and the sense of guilt, for the previous atrocities of America, has returned by the term Ground Zero to awaken Americans. Then, at the Zero place and time, they would achieve self-consciousness and recognition of what it could mean to be an equal member of the world. It would be then plausible to give the victims, who were the costs of this national awakening, an appropriate memorial (2003, p. 128). In that case, as Smelser asserts, the trauma can be described as a solidifying (2004, p. 44) national experience that could strengthen the ties between subcultures, including the Muslim Americans. However, the ideal situation did not really happen, “nor could it” (Davis, 2003, p. 128). The “carriers” or “cultural specialist” (Smelser, 2004, p. 38) had already attempt to justify the evaporation of Hiroshima and represent it as a heroic act, which was done with so much reluctant; or as the well-known phrase says, it was done as America’s “least abhorrent choice” to save the life of million Americans (Davis, 2003, p. 128). That was one story, while the sadder story is that Hiroshima was burnt just because it was typical American way to bloodshed around the world. There is no need at this point to go further exploring the many underlying reasons for that cruel attack. Nonetheless, it is necessary to state that the entire “pretty story” of Hiroshima had been written anonymously for the Secretary of State of the time (Davis, 2003, p. 128), to dictate it to the whole nation as “the whole story” (Smelser, 2004, p. 55). As expected, a similar sort of whole story needed to be written about 9/11, to put down all the dispute and ambivalence among the public, which will be discussed later in the final section of coping mechanism. However, the other story of 9/11, that is, what happened at the backstage, caused what Smelser calls “splitting” and distorted the integrity of American society. When cultural split reaches to extreme levels, it results in the partial or complete silence of one side and rise in the voice of another. At the social stage, it looks more like a “cultural play, or a “cultural war” lead by polarized political groups (Smelser, 2004, pp. 54-5). After September 11 2001, the innocent victims became the excuse for scapegoating American Muslims at home, and targeting other Muslims wherever America labeled as the site of terrorism (Davis, 2003, p. 129). 5. Coping Mechanism In the psychoanalytic realm, “fighting back” of the affected individuals, against the traumatic experience, has existed since the earliest findings of Freud, and has lead to the appearance of such the notions as “coping” and “defense” mechanisms or strategies against the trauma. However, according to Smelser, the literature used to define and classify the “stages” and “modes” of psychological trauma suffers from loads of confusion, vagueness, repetition, generalization and overlapping. Following Freud’s tradition of psychoanalysis, Smelser defines the defense mechanism against trauma as a sequence of internal reactions: accumulation of unsatisfied tension, which in turn, arouses the representations of psychic drive, related affects, fantasized satisfying objects and finally some “motor activity” that changes the state of this system and calm down the tension. At any of these stages, Smelser believes, there is the possibility for the defense mechanism to be activated. In addition to these stages in the defense process, he has also recognized four various mode of defending: blocking the interference of threat, converting the type of this interference, shifting the targets, and finally isolation of the threat. In spite of that, as the evidence show, the traumatized individual may use two or more of defense modes at the same time (2004, p. 45). Moreover, the stages and the modes of defense strategies are not limited to internal threats. That is, in the case any external threat as well, the individual may resort to suppression, denial, displacement, projection or depersonalization, and so on. On the other hand, although the term “defense mechanism” has a broad record, Smelser prefers the term “coping mechanism” or “coming to terms with” to refer to this process. As he argues, while the former posits the individual actively in the face of the threat, the later ones remain more neutral (2004, p. 47). Adopting a broader perspective, it is evident that human beings have always been involved in various forms of internal and external threats in their lives. As a result, it is possible to regard this defense mechanism, as universally known strategies of coping, or a universal language that links collectivities and individuals around the world. For instance, everyone knows what it means to reverse love, to deny or to scapegoat. This, what Smelser calls, “shareability” (Smelser, 2004, p. 47), is a presupposition in understanding the collective coping of the cultural trauma. 5.1 Denial, Converting, Projection, and Ambivalence The terms used to refer to the attacks of September 11, 2001, not only gave way to the psychological and cultural trauma that followed the attacks, but also revealed the strategy American took in search of recovery. According to Davis, the fact that the term ground-zero was capitalized was a proof for “calling upon the mechanisms of projection and denial” (2003, p. 128). By denial he meant, denial of the fact that America, for what she had already done, was responsible for being attacked and targeted now. Similarly, Redfield asserts that capitalization of the term Ground Zero, reveals an underlying attempt of denial of the fact that the site was just another targeted ground zero in the history. Put it differently, as one of their first strategies, American cultural carries resorted to a strategy that best suit the American public and politicians; that is, denial of being responsible for the past mistakes and denial of vulnerability of the American dream. In addition, by distancing the public from the reality behind this story, it blocked mourning, which in turn belated the recovery. The other terms used to refer to the event, also serves as the similar purposes (2007, p. 56). Secondly, although the bombing of Hiroshima by America was the first terroristic act in the globe, the term ground-zero, capitalized, helped convert America to a site for the innocent victim of global terrorism, and therefore, assumed American government a mission to cleanse the world from terrorists (Spivak, 2004, p. 82). Consequently, this led to the third mechanism of coping with cultural trauma, that is, scapegoating and finger pointing others, or the most hated ones.

ALLS 5(1):157-163, 2014 162 In fact, the terms officially allowed projection of responsibility and guilt on Muslims. As a result, scapegoating occurred at both national and international level, aiming Muslims and whoever with minimal resemblance to them in name, language, or appearance. American Muslim were, afterwards, known as “they”, “the suspected perpetrators” (Abu-Ras et al, 2013, p. 16), as opposed to “we” the real victims. Davis sees this American habit of targeting and demonizing, as a projection at unlimited scope, one that finds targets anytime and anywhere it needs them (2003, p. 129). The evidence is that, soon after the attacks, the Congress passed the USA Patriotic Act, which “authorized the federal government to arrest, detain, and deport non-American citizen (Abu-Ras et al, 2013, p. 12). This so called counter-terroristic policy, rose the figure to 2,000 to 5,000 arrested Muslims and Arabs (Akram, 2004, p. 620). Although not all Americans agreed with the antagonism towards their Muslim neighbors or colleagues, politicians and public servants, who were the primary source of the discourses released to public targeted Muslim professionals. In other words, 9/11 terminology described all Muslims as extremists, killers and terrorists. According to Abu-Ras et al. these attempts spread a sense of islomiphobia, or anti-muslim to about twenty-five to fifty percent of the population at various areas. “Islomophobic discourse portrayed Islam as monolithic and threatening, Muslims as using Islam to gain advantages for ideological goals, and Muslim culture as significantly and adversely different from other cultures” (Abu-Ras et al, 2013, p. 12). This was while such social and linguistic scholars as Noam Chomsky argued that 9/11was not only about religion, and the term “religion” (Spivak, 2004, p. 82) should not be attached to it immediately in seek of the responsible. Spivak defines American war on terrorism, in general, as “a cruel caricature of what in us can respond” to situations that arouse self-guilt. What makes the American War on terror distinctive is that it is a fight against an abstract enemy (2004, p. 81). As the result of this biased game of cultures, Muslim American were traumatized as both victims and perpetrators. Although the situation could not be fully “worked out through”, Muslim Americans did not remain silent either, and developed their own strategies of coping. As the studies show, on the contrary, Muslim Americans regarded the situation as a chance for the Muslim Community to expand their social understanding by sympathizing with the other affected Americans. The replacement strategy had also been taken by the Americans, but that turned out to more “problematical” and “splitting” (pp. 54-5) than healing, as it generated a second level of trauma for their fellow Muslim Americans and isolated them from the rest of the society. The point is not that Muslims did not face an initial dispute and confusion over the interpretation of the situation and the proper reaction, but that they managed to shift the negative situation to positive one to assure their own survival, while still considering welfare of the others. 6. Conclusion The fact that no event of history had ever been so widely broadcasted as the terroristic attacks to the American towers on September 11 2001, reinforces the idea that no event is inherently traumatic. Moreover, a comparison between the casualties of the attacks and those of Holocaust, Hiroshima, Cambodia and the attacks of September 9/11 further strengthen the idea that trauma is not inherent in all historical catastrophes. Because cultural trauma will be established within a Any community that undergoes a potentially traumatic experience, needs to be historically and structurally prepared for its establishment The experience of the Great Depression, World War II, as well as the Cold War, and many other unresolved wars led by the America around the globe, had already affected the society of America. In other words, American memory had the scare of previous gashes on it much before the attacks took place. Moreover, America has a widespread reputation for its multi-culturalism, as well as nationalism. It had been the home to people from variety of religious and cultural background, which at the same time entangled with cultural sophistications, as a super power. It is an undeniable that the attacks mean to symbolically bring America to its knees and to shake the foundations of its cultural straucture once again. What is more, the attacks were, by means of social agents and cultural carriers, translated, to the images and words that contributed to this symbolism. Ground Zero, as a central image endowed and mediated a range of negative meanings to the event, and to the Americans as the innocent, vulnerable targets. Deep in, it points out to the long term anxiety of a nation about the consequences of they had already done to the others. Embodied in an image, the anxiety keeps haunting the American society and makes it impossible for them to work out the trauma once and forever. The names used to refer to the event, had an increasingly affect on the traumatic affect by distancing the subjects from the reality of the event, as well as the truth behind it. September 11, or 9/11, acquire a substantial rhetorical power that contributes to its affect in various ways. While they demand the detail knowledge from the listener, they highlight the traumatic force, by distinguishing it from the other September 11s on the calendar. These terms, have been overtly used by the American press and media, since the attacks, and have continued to provoke a patriotic sentimentalism. In response, American public and politicians resorted to pointing the condemning finger at others, instead of finding the reality and the root of the problem. This American habit of targeting and demonizing, not only traumatized all Muslims, as the suspected perpetrators, but also belated the recovery process among the Americans themselves. Moreover, it further justified the terrorization of the civilians in the name of War on Terror, and made the American memory ever more prone to the establishment of another cultural trauma.

ALLS 5(1):157-163, 2014 163 References Abu-Ras, W., Senzai, F., & Larid, L. (2013). American Muslim Physicians’ Experiences Since 9/11 Cultural Trauma and the Formation of Islamic Identity. Traumatology, 19, 11–19. Adorno, T. W. (1982). Prisms. The MIT Press. Akram, S. M., & Karmely, M. (2004). Immigration and constitutional consequences of post-9/11 policies Involving Arabs and Muslims in the United States: Is alienage a distinction without a difference. UC DAViS l. reV., 38, 609. Anker, E. S. (2011). Allegories of Falling and the 9/11 Novel. American Literary History, 23(3), 463–482. Base, B. A. F. (2001). Remarks by the President Upon Arrival at. Benjamin, W. (1969). Theses on the Philosophy of History. New York: IIIuminations, 255. Boss, P., Beaulieu, L., Wieling, E., Turner, W., & LaCruz, S. (2003). Healing loss, ambiguity, and trauma: a community based intervention with families of union workers missing after the 9/11 attack in new york city. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 29, 455–467. Caruth, C. (1995). Trauma: Explorations in memory. JHU Press. Caruth, C. (2010). Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative and history. JHU Press. Davis, W. A. (2003). Death’s dream kingdom: The American psyche after 9-11. Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society, 8, 127–132. Epstein, D., Paterson, M. S., Cannon, J. W., Holt, D. F., Levy, S. V, & Thurston, W. P. (1992). Word processing in groups. AK Peters, Ltd. Farrell, K. (1998). Post-traumatic culture: Injury and interpretation in the nineties. JHU Press. Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, trans.). New York: Harper & Row. Huddy, L., Feldman, S., Taber, C., & Lahav, G. (2005). Threat, anxiety, and support of antiterrorism policies. American Journal of Political Science, 49, 593–608. Huser, R. (2004). Introduction: 911 and 9/11: Links to Link. Cultural Critique, 57, 3–13. Kaplan, E. A. (2005). Trauma culture: The politics of terror and loss in media and literature. Rutgers University Press. LaCapra, D. (2001). Writing history, writing trauma. JHU Press. Meek, A. (2012). Trauma: With or Without Theory. Cultural Studies Review, 18, 347–352. Neal, A. G. (1998). National trauma and collective memory: Major events in the American century. ME Sharpe. Redfield, M. (2007). Virtual trauma: The idiom of 9/11. diacritics, 37, 55–80. Smelser, N. J. (2004a). Epilogue: September 11, 2001, as cultural trauma. Cultural trauma and collective identity, 2, 264–282. Smelser, N. J. (2004b). Psychological trauma and cultural trauma. Cultural trauma and collective identity, 4, 31–59. Spivak, G. C. (2004). Terror: A speech after 9-11. boundary 2, 31, 81–111. Sztompka, P. (2004). The trauma of social change. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, California University Press, Berkeley, 6, 155–197. Thompson, K. (1998). Moral panics. Psychology Press. Versluys, K. (2009). Out of the Blue: September 11 and the Novel. Columbia University Press.



Attitudes towards Teachers’ Motivation, and Classroom Strategy, in English Language classrooms

Samira Pahlavanpoorfard

Department of Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Larestan Branch E-mail: [email protected]

Afshin Soori

Department of Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University, Larestan Branch E-mail: [email protected]

Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.164 Received: 03/01/2014 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.1p.164 Accepted: 27/02/2014 Abstract This study aimed at investigating the attitudes of Iranian EFL students towards teachers’ motivation and classroom strategy in English classroom. The subjects of the study included a sample of 235 students in their classes. The findings of this study revealed that teachers’ motivation and classroom strategy used by teachers have effects on the students’ motivation. Keywords: student motivation, teacher motivation, strategy used by teachers 1. Introduction In the world of education, motivation is a factor that can play a significant role in the success of second or foreign language learning in a language classroom. To Dornneyei (1998) “motivation provides the primary impetus to initiate learning the second language and later the driving force to sustain the long and often tedious learning process” (p.117). Motivation, however, is “a complex” and “multifaceted construct” (Gardner, 1985; Williams & Burdoen, 1997). In many instances, students may face many different obstacles in learning English because they are demotivated to learn. Learning situation contains many factors like classroom environment, teacher, learning context, teaching methods, classmates, and teacher personality (Dörnyei, 1994). However, the role of teacher motivation on the students’ achievement shouldn’t be ignored. During the last few years research about motivation has focused on different factors which are responsible for learning a second or foreign language. Researchers refer to the role of teachers and their motivations and behaviors as a determinant factor for achievement a second language (Kikuchi, 2009; Sakai & Kikuchi, 2009; Tanak, 2005). Some other studies point to the role of teachers in the learners’ motivation. These studies express the influential roles of teachers for helping the students in the process of second language acquisition. In fact, teachers can play as facilitator, initiator, motivator, consultant, and supporter in a language classroom (Al Kaboody, 2013). These roles can be considered as influential factors in achievement of a second language. According to Ramage (1990) teachers should be motivated themselves and they should try to increase the learners’ motivation in order to actively engage in the learning of a target language. However, the effect of teacher and his teaching strategies on motivating the students depend on perceptions of those strategies by the students. In this case, many empirical studies refer to the teacher’s motivation on the learners’ level of achievement of a second language (Dörnyei (2001). According to Dornyei (1994 as cited in Al Kaboody, 2013) “teacher-associated components that influence learners are language learners’ affiliation (i.e., learners’ desire to please teachers), teacher’s style of teaching, and the use of particular teaching strategies, including modeling task-presentation and feedback” (p.49). The interaction between L2 learners and the teachers include many different factors include learning experiences, and feedback rewards which are relevant factors that influence on the learners’ motivation for learning (Williams & Burden, 1997). Oxford and Shearin (1994) refer to five implications for the role of the teacher in understanding motivation. Oxford and Shearin (1994 as cited in Al Kaboody, 2013) propose that the teachers should “(a) figure out learners’ real reasons for learning the L2; (b) help students build challenging but achievable goals; (c) show students the benefits of learning the L2; (d) create a safe, welcoming, and non-intimidating teaching environment; and (e) motivate students to develop high but realistic intrinsic motivation” (p.49). To be more influential and assisting the learners to attain a high level of achievement in second language learning, a teacher should be familiar with learners’ goals and needs. Brophey (1998) argues that teachers should teach what is related to the learners’ needs. However, if it is not related to their needs their motivation to learn will be decreased

ALLS 5(1):164-168, 2014 165 dramatically when the learners learn something they do not see any relevant to their needs. In this case, Dörnyei (2001) proposes that the materials made by teachers should be relevant as much as possible to the students’ lives and teachers should try their best to supply some more activities in textbooks with more relevant materials in order to motivate the learners to learn. Finally, “teachers should help students create realistic beliefs about language learning. Some learners bring some unrealistic learning beliefs about how much progress or learning they can achieve in a particular class. If they do not see that their beliefs or expectations are not achieved, they will become disappointed and lose interest in the course (Al Kaboody, 2013, p.50). Teachers should also inform the students of the complexity of the learning process. Moreover, they should make the students familiar with different ways of achieving success in learning a second language and also encourage the learners to find distinct ways of learning. It seems that if a teacher makes the learning experience enjoyable and stimulation, he can maintain the motivation among the students in the language classroom. This can occur in many different ways. For example, by varying their teaching styles, presentations, learning tasks, teachers are able to make teaching more interesting. Interesting tasks are viewed as essential components of motivation (Anderman & Anderman, 2010). Teachers can also make the teaching interesting if they introduce novel techniques and make the task more challenging (Al Kaboody, 2013). However, the tasks presenting by teachers can be motivating or demotivating depend on how the teachers administer the tasks. Moreover, the teachers should clarify the aim of the tasks, arouse learners’ anticipation toward the task, and offer some useful strategies for doing the task (Al Kaboody, 2013). Another important issue for maintaining the motivation among the students is self-esteem. According to Dornyei & Ushioda (2011) the learners cannot progress if they have doubt about their abilities in learning a second language. To this end, motivated teachers can increase the learners’ self-confidence in different ways. For instance, teachers can focus positively on what the learners are able to do rather than on what they cannot do and giving a chance to use their capabilities to get to a high level of achievement in second language learning. In order to preserving the motivation among the students, teachers can also make the teaching context relaxing and less stressful by demonstrating the students a positive image of their strengths. Learning autonomy is another important issue that should be fostered by teachers to help students have a better achievement in learning a second language (Dornyei& Ushioda, 2011). When discussing maintaining motivation, most researchers emphasize the teacher’s role. However, to make the learning beneficial for the students, they should be given a good opportunity to share the responsibility in the classroom. According to Al Kaboody (2013) “learners who motivate themselves exhibit more success in pursuing their goals. Teachers can promote their students’ self-motivation by drawing their attention to useful strategies, such as favorable expectations, incentives, dealing with procrastination and boredom, and eliminating distractions” (p. 52). 2. Review of related literature During the past decades a large number of studies (eg., Clément,1980; Gardner, 1985 and MacIntyre, Clément & Noels, 1998) have been written on the students’ motivation and its relationship with second language achievement. These studies have proposed some models and phenomena related to motivation in the classroom. These models point out the essential roles of motivation in relation with learning a second or foreign language. However, the concepts of how and why the motivation is important may be different from one model to another model (Bernaus, & Wilson 2009). These models are responsible for identifying the characteristics of the individuals and cause the achievement differences in learning a second language in a classroom. According to Gardner (2007) second language learning is not like other subjects because it includes the elements of another culture like vocabulary, pronunciation, and language structure, while, the other subjects contain elements which are related to just one culture. Bernaus, & Wilson (2009) state that these two “educationally relevant and culturally relevant variables should be considered when attempting to understand the process by which a second language is learned” (p. 26). There are many studies to suggest how motivation will be able to be developed and supported. Among numerous studies, Dörnyei and Csizér (1998) refer to ten teachers’ commandments for improving the students’ motivation. Williams and Brurden (1997) also explained that teachers can use different ways to motivate the students. The review of some studies (e.g. Gardner, Masgoret, Tennant, & Mihic 2004) revealed that what are taking place in a language classroom can affect on the students’ perspectives and motivation. Gardner et al., (2004) believed that the students’ level of motivational intensity, their attitudes towards learning a foreign language, integrative orientation, course evaluation, class anxiety will be diminished significantly over a course of year. Similar findings were shown in a study by Gardner and Bernaus (2004) on high school students learning English as a foreign language. That study also indicated that scores on integrativeness and motivation decreased significantly from the beginning of the year to the end. To this end, it seemed that there was a “significant interaction between the level of achievement attained in the class and changes over time in attitude toward the learning situation” (Bernaus, & Wilson, 2009, p.27). Reviewing the related literature shows some studies on teachers’ motivation (e.g. Tragant, 1996; Kassabgy, Boraie, and Schmidt, 2001), strategies used by teachers in language classrooms (Donitsa-Schmidt, Inbar and Shohamy, 2004; Madrid, 2002), and students’ motivation Schmidt and Watanabe, 2001). There are some other studies which investigated on the role of teachers’ and students’ perceptions. Among the researchers, Jacques (2001) examined both teachers’ and students’ motivation also their preferences for receiving instruction in the language classroom. He referred to the relationship between some motivational characteristics and perceptions of strategy use. In a study Guillautaux and Dörnyei (2008) investigated the link between the motivation of

ALLS 5(1):164-168, 2014 166 teachers for teaching and learners’ motivation in a language classroom. The results of their study revealed that there was a direct relationship between the teachers’ motivation and language motivation in the language classroom. As it was mentioned earlier, Bernaus and Gardner (2008 as cited in Bernaus, & Wilson, 2009) stated that language achievement is not related to motivational strategy use reported by the teachers but it is when reported by the students. The current study investigates language achievement among the Iranian EFL students regarding the teacher’s motivation and the motivating strategies they use in the classroom. Regarding this issue, the research question is: What are the attitudes of the students’ toward the teachers’ motivation and classroom strategy they use in the classroom? 3. Method The participants of the current study included 235 students. They were EFL students from 3 public and 3 private high schools in Larestan, Iran. All these students were in the last year of secondary education. They were all in the range of 16 to 17 years old. In order to identify the classroom strategies by teachers, the researcher of this study administered a questionnaire to Iranian EFL students. It contained two parts. In the first part, the researcher asked the students to rate to what extent the teachers were successful to use 26 strategies (mentioned earlier) in the classroom. The questionnaire was a Likert Type questionnaire with seven options. The students’ scores obtained from Innovative and Traditional strategies. In the second part of the questionnaire, the researcher administered a mini-AMTB that had been modified by the Gardner, MacIntyre (1993) and Bernaus, Gardner (2008). “Six variables were derived from scores on this test because some scales were aggregated” (Bernaus, & Wilson, 2009, p. 30). These variables included: Integrativeness. To Bernaus, & Wilson (2009) integrativeness is a concept that refers to general-relevant attitudes which is related to learning another language. This concept reveals a dimension of openness to other cultural communities that focuses on the ability to accept material from another cultural community (Bernaus, & Wilson 2009). Attitudes toward the Learning Situation. This concept is related to attitudes of the students towards the learning situation. Here, the AMTB focuses on just two aspects as Evaluation of the English Teacher and Evaluation of the English Course (Bernaus, & Wilson 2009). Mottivation. This concept indicates to what extent the students are motivated to learn second language. The AMTB measures , Motivational Intensity, Desire to Learn English, and Attitude toward Learning English which are relevant to the classroom context, effort, desire, and the students’ attitudes towards learning second language (Bernaus, & Wilson 2009). Language Anxiety. According to Bernaus & Wilson (2009) this concept is related to the concerns and discomfort of the students when they are using a second language. In AMTB, this concept is measured based on English class anxiety, and English use anxiety. Two other variables were also measured. They were Instrumental Orientation, and Parental Encouragement. 4. Results and Discussion To analyze the data mean scores of the students in each class were calculated. The scores for the students were obtained in terms of the measures administered to them. To this end, this study was supposed to explore the how students view using the teaching strategies, and also the degree of motivation among the teachers in the classroom. Factor analysis was used to identify the correlation among L2 variables. Three factors were calculated based on eigenvalues were greater than 1.0, which were account for 73% of the variance. The eigenvalue of the fourth factor was .94. The result of Scree plot revealed that the fourth factor ought to be included. Therefore, the residual correlations confirmed it. About 81% of the residuals were less than .10 with these four factors. So, four factors accounted for 78% of the whole variance. Factor I was taken from the measure of students’ English achievement and four of variable related to AMTB. It showed that the high the levels of achievement were obtained with high levels of Instructional Orientation, parental encouragement and motivation for learning English. Integrative motivation proposes that achievement for learning English may be higher in classes where the students are integratively motivated. In fact, this is one of the measures that help Parental Encouragement. It reveals that “classes that differ in integrative motivation might well receive differential support from parents of the students involved” (Bernaus, & Wilson 2009, p.31). Factor II was determined by five measures. The responses to items by the students indicated that students had positive attitudes towards the learning situation and they had high motivation toward Traditional and Innovative strategies used frequently in the classroom. They also preferred teachers with high levels of motivation. An important issue about this factor relates to the association of the characteristics of the class with teacher motivation which is identified by this factor. It seems that there are relationships between the ways motivated teachers teach English, the degree their students perceive them as strategies using in the classroom and the students’ motivation to learn English. According educational experts, teacher’s motivation plays an essential role in the teaching or learning a second language. Factor III was determined by two other measures. The students were satisfied with Traditional Strategies that were used by the teachers. It seems that both teachers and students agree about the use of Traditional Strategies, but there was no agreement between them about the use of Innovative strategies. The probable reason was that these types of strategies were directed toward teaching the language. However, innovative strategies were directed to the students rather than

ALLS 5(1):164-168, 2014 167 learning. To Bernaus, & Wilson (2009) Traditional Strategies is related to students with lower levels of English achievement. Factor IV was determined by two variables. In the classes where the teachers used Innovative Strategies, the students had lower levels of Language Anxiety than the classes the teachers used the Traditional Strategies. To this end, the teachers should use Innovative strategies to reduce anxiety among the students. Consequently, this factor is considered as Teacher Innovative Strategy Use. According to Horwitz & Cope (1986) language anxiety is negatively associated with language anxiety and the “extended use of innovative strategies is associated with decreased language anxiety” (Bernaus, & Wilson 2009, p.31). The outcome of this study attested to the importance of Bernaus, & Wilson 2009 with a sample of 694 secondary students. The finding of this study proposes that students should be motivated in the language classrooms. In fact, when the students are highly motivated, the students try their bests to take part in class activities and feel more motivated. References Bernaus, M., Wilson, A., and Gardner, R.C. (2009). Teachers’ motivation, classroom strategy use, students’ motivation and second language achievement. JPOOSRÉT AM LAINNUGEULA VRUEMZ,12. pp. 25-36. Clément, R. (1980). “Ethnicity, contact and communicative competence in a second language”. In H. Giles, W. P. Robinson & P. M. Smith (Eds.) Language: Social psychological perspectives: Selected papers from the First International Conference on Social Psychology and Language held at the University of Bristol, England, July 1979. Oxford: Pergamon. Donitsa-Schmidt, S., Inbar, O. and Shohamy, E. (2004). The Effects of Teaching Spoken Arabic on Students’ Attitudes and Motivation in Israel. The Modern Language Journal, 88: 217- 228. Dörnyei, Z. (1994). Motivation and motivating in the foreign language Classroom. Modern Language Journal, 78: 273-284. Dörnyei, Z. (1998). Demotivation in foreign language learning. Paper presented at the TESOL 98 Congress, Seattle, WA Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Dörnyei, Z. & Csizér, K. (1998). “Ten commandments for motivating language learners: Results of an empirical study”. Language Teaching Research, 2: 203-229. Dörnyei, Z., & Ushioda, E. (2011). Teaching and researching motivation (2nd ed.). Harlow, England: Pearson Longman Gardner, R. C. (1985). Social psychology and second language learning: The role of attitudes and motivation. London: Edward Arnold Publishers. Gardner, R. C. (2007). “Motivation and second language acquisition”. Porta Linguarum, 8: 9-20. Gardner, R. C. & Bernaus, M. (2004). “The applicability of the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery to EFL students in Spain”. Unpublished manuscript, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. Gardner, R. C., Masgoret, A.-M., Tennant, J., & Mihic, L. (2004). “Integrative motivation: Changes during a year-long intermediate-level language course”. Language Learning , 54: 1–34. Guillauteaux, M. J. & Dörnyei, Z. (2008). “Motivating Language Learners: A Classroom Oriented Investigation of the Effects of Motivational Strategies on Student Motivation”. Tesol Quarterly, 42, (1): 55-77. Horwitz, E. K.; Horwitz, M. B.; Cope, J. (1986). “Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety”. The Modern Language Journal, 70: 125-132. Jacques, S. R. (2001). “Preferences for instructional activities and motivation: A comparison of student and teacher perspectives”. In Z. Dörnyei & R. Schmidt (Eds.), Motivation and second language acquisition. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center. Kassabgy, O., Boraie, D., & Schmidt, R. (2001). “Values, rewards, and job satisfaction in ESL/ EFL”. In Z. Dörnyei & R. Schmidt (eds.), Motivation and second language acquisition. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center. Kikuchi, K. (2009). Listening to out learners’ voices: What demotivates Japanese high school students? Language Teaching Research, 13, 453-471. MacIntyre, P. D., Clément, R. & Noels, K. (1998). “Conceptualizing willingness to communicate in a L2: A situational model of L2 confidence and affiliation”. The Modern Language Journal, 82: 545-562. Madrid, D. (2002). “The Power of the FL Teacher’s Motivational Strategies”. Cauce, 25. Oxford, R., & Shearin, J. (1994). Language learning motivation: Expanding the theoretical framework. The Modern Language Journal, 1 (78): 12-28. Ramage, K. (1990). Motivational factors and persistence in foreign language study. Language Learning, 40, 189-219. Sakai, H., & Kikuchi, K. (2009). An analysis of demotivators in the EFL classroom. System, 37, 57-69.

ALLS 5(1):164-168, 2014 168 Schmidt, R. & Watanabe, Y. (2001). “Motivation, strategy use and pedagogical preferences in foreign language learning”. In Z. Dörnyei & R. Schmidt (eds.), Motivation and second language acquisition. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center. Tanaka, T. (2005). Teacher influence on learner motivation. Osaka Female Junior College, Retrieved in the EFL classroom. System, 37, 57-69. Retrieved from http://www.wilmina.ac.jp/ojc/kiyo_2005/kiyo_35_PDF/2005_06.pdf. Tragant, E. (1996). “The impact of teachers’ beliefs on their practice in activity structuring”. Atlantis XVIII: 407-415. Williams, M. & Burden, R. (1997). Psychology for Language Teachers. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.



“Suicide Heights”: Council Estates As Sites Of Entrapment And Resistance In Hello Mum

Sebnem Toplu

Dept. of English Language & Literature Faculty of Letters, EGE University

Bornova/ Izmir 35100, Turkey E-mail: [email protected]


Council estates have been contestable social spaces of contemporary urban life in metropolitan cities like London and the marginalizing spatial experience they provide for the “working class” has been a problematic topic for many disciplines like architecture, sociology, psychology and literature. Considering the significance of space for the body in literary works, this essay analyses the black British woman writer Bernardine Evaristo’s fifth work, Hello Mum, a short-fiction, which revolves primarily around a fourteen-year-old black teenager Jerome’s tragic experience in a council estate in London. In this essay, scrutinizing Bernardine Evaristo’s novella Hello Mum and inhabiting a council estate as a challenging spatial experience, I suggest the teenager victim Jerome’s narrative reveals a kind of physical and psychological entrapment and resistance to the dominant ideology of the council estates, offers an alternative perception for the black people who are obliged to live in such marginalized places.

Keywords: Bernardine Evaristo, Hello Mum, council estates, teenage gangs, racism, gender

Council estates are dwelling places for a considerable proportion of population in many cities, especially in London. A typical British council estate is made up of various types of homes, including flats, terraced houses and maisonettes. Yet, although they appear in many different architectural forms, Ravetz suggests that there is some essential feature of “estateness” which contributes to their reputation and continued presence in political and social consciousness ( 2001, 177). The council estates in England were built gradually, starting in mid-nineteenth century, but basically between 1919 and 1970s, and they were initially intended for the large working classes and owned by local councils. The state-subsidized projects still continue in the present day England, although they are mostly implemented and managed by private companies. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, though, the situation has altered, since the politics of housing changed in 1980s under the Right to Buy policy which allowed the tenants to buy their properties (Beswick 2011, 434). However, Beswick underlines that by the “subsequent governments’ implementing shifting policies on social housing provisions– these spaces have become additionally contentious and complex” (422).

From architectural point of view, then, council estates provide an iconic legacy of Britain’s twentieth-century social housing experiment, hence, they are especially a significant socio-cultural and historical feature of British history. In the same vein, in her research article “Theatre Applications: Locations, Event, Futurity”, Beswick states that the image of council estate is often used in popular representation, from documentary and television to music video to symbolize the urban “grit” of contemporary inner-city life. Particularly in the theatre, urban political and working class drama has been set on or around estates “in attempts to deconstruct or expose the impact of life on these estates or to examine what such places denote” in contemporary society (Beswick 2011, 421).

Apart from the theatre, though, council estates as an intriguing subject and location for fiction is revealed in Black British woman writer Bernardine Evaristo’s fifth work Hello Mum (2010), from a black teenager’s point of view. Hello Mum is a short fiction about juvenile delinquency, set in 2009. The book’s cover bears the picture of a black boy and the inscription “[a]story of murder and heartbreak”. The tragedy involves the brief but sad life of a fourteen year old boy, Jerome, who inhabits a London council estate with his single mother Kimisi, a black woman of thirty-four and his four-year-old half-sister Shontelle. Jerome, with the desire to belong to a powerful gang, joins the Kamikaze Kru and for a higher standard of living, he accepts the gang leader Delmar’s brother Dexter’s offer to act as a drug dealer and is killed on his first day by some other gang’s members. Apart from her other five fiction, it is the only work Evaristo presents with the dedication: “For the children…”, though paradoxically it is not a children’s book, but a cautionary realistic fiction, a warning for the concern of both youth and adults.

As for the form, peculiarly, the story is narrated by means of a letter written by Jerome to his mother after his death; composed of eleven chapters with subtitles. His letter serves two purposes: firstly, clarifying Jerome’s mood and the series of events that caused his death; and secondly, as he underlines with bitter humor, “for once” his mother “can’t

ALLS 5(1):169-174, 2014 170 answer back” (4). The mother Kimisi is not given a voice, so, the reader is exposed to a series of significant events through the lens of a teenager; Jerome is a protagonist whose parents do not understand him. In that, Evaristo projects two crucial issues: teenage gangs on the inner estates in London and the problematic single mother and teenage son relationship in the subdued context of racism and discrimination.1 In this essay, I’ll focus on the former, exposing the crucial challenge the council estates position as sites of entrapment and resistance, especially for the black teenagers like Jerome. The council estate they inhabit is revealed as a pivotal location; a site for home, yet a space which confines the inhabitants and makes them feel entrapped, thus emerging as an instigator of crime. Is it possible to resist and liberate oneself from a council estate? My contention is that the council estate that Jerome inhabits in Hello Mum signifies all: a space for confinement, resistance and liberation.

Lefebvre’s book, The Production of Space ([1974] 1991), moving away from the dominant historical and cultural narratives of social production, gives a spatial analyses of the production of society, considering a relationship between the perceived, the conceived and the lived space (Soja 1996, 79). Lefebvre’s model of “spatial practice”, signifies the everyday practice of lived space: “spatial practice might thus be defined [...] by the daily life of the tenant in a government-subsidized high-rise housing project’ (Lefebvre [1974] 1991, 38).2 In Jerome’s view, the lived space is combined with a negative conception for both the perceived and conceived space. The negative feeling the council estates produce is also noted; in Jerome’s view, the lived space amounts to a negative conception for both the perceived and conceived space. In her essay on social housing Emily Cuming also maintains that the word “housing” itself is almost a synonym for “poor housing” and “loaded with negative associations of insensitive planning, state policy, and social control, lacks the cultural capital associated with the word property or the comforting [...] parameters of home” (2) (emphasis original).

Moreover, as Lefebvre notes, in the practice of space, the experience of the body is central, “social practice presupposes the use of the body” ([1974] 1991, 40). Jerome is born in a confined space created by the estate and at fourteen the trouble emerges. For psychologists, the adolescent period is a “developmental phase defined by transition” (Sauter et al. 311), during which “identity” is the “primary psychosocial crisis” (Garcia 2010, 167). Therefore, in this “decade”, adolescents have to cope with various kinds of stress. Concordantly, Jerome’s letter starts on the day he was murdered and he highlights with direct emphasis on numerous instances arising out of entrapment in a council estate: the strain of the uncommon heat reflected by the tall buildings, his anger toward his mother, especially for having to live in an estate and then the police who circle above by a helicopter day and night: “their red beams swooped down like they was [sic] hunting animals”, although the youngsters are “just standing around chatting nonsense” (2). The police surveillance does create a psychological and literal sense of entrapment on the teenagers as the animal metaphor reinforces, despite the fact that, “place–based” crime prevention is significant for the authorities (Weisburd et al. 2009, 461). Paradoxically, though, when the consequent murder of the day is considered, even constant police surveillance cannot deter the gangs from crime.3

The teenagers are not the only ones who conceive the estate as a site of confinement, though. Another serious indicator involves the amount of adults who commit suicide that Jerome presents with slight exaggeration: 1 See Sebnem Toplu “Juvenile Crime or a Corollary” in Fiction Unbound Bernardine Evaristo (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, [2011],2014)

2 In Thirdspace, Soja’s central argument, drawn from critical engagement with the French spatial theorist Henri Lefebvre, is that spatial thinking has been previously confined to one of two perspectives. Soja calls “Firstspace” the modernist approach to space in its concrete or “real” material forms. Firstspace thinkers positivistically approach space as mathematically and quantifiably measurable […] Lefebvre calls this kind of space “perceived space”. Scholars who approach space as “Secondspace,” or what Lefebvre called “conceived space,” take the opposite tack, approaching spaces as mental constructs or “imagined” representations. Secondspace thinkers assume that “spatial knowledge is primarily produced through discursively devised representations of space, through the spatial workings of the mind” (79). “In its purest form,” says Soja, “Secondspace is entirely ideational, made up of projections into the empirical world from conceived or imagined geographies” (79). It is not that material reality does not exist; rather, these thinkers believe that materiality can be comprehended fully by thought. Secondspace thinkers “read” spaces as texts in order to interpret their meanings. In the past three decades, Secondspace epistemologies have been dominant amongst critical thinkers in the academy. Soja goes beyond Lefebvre in describing Thirdspace as “an-Other” zone (57). According to Soja, Thirdspace not only unites the dualism between real and imagined, it is “radically open to additional otherness, to a continuing expansion of spatial knowledge” (61). It is “a space of extraordinary openness, a place of critical exchange” (5). Since Thirdspace is constantly expanding, it remains open to the possibilities for social change and renegotiations of power, boundaries, and identity. Thirdspace bears the marks of a mid-1990s postmodernist manifesto. http://disgorgedintotalrecall.tumblr.com/post/30112057564/edward-soja-thirdspace-journeys-to-los-angeles-and

3 As a result of their longitudinal study, Weisburd et al. report that the very high concentration of juvenile arrest incidents in Seattle points to the importance of place-based crime prevention for reducing juvenile crime. By addressing only a relatively small number of street segments in the city, police or other crime prevention authorities can potentially target a large proportion of officially recorded juvenile crime. The finding of stability across time further reinforces the importance of place focused crime prevention. “If the most active hot spots are likely to stay very active over time, they provide a very stable focus for intervention. Though place-based crime prevention has not been a major focus of delinquency prevention, our work suggests that it may be an area with great promise” (2009, 461).

ALLS 5(1):169-174, 2014 171 I looked up at the top floor balconies and wondered when the next person would chuck themselves off. Thump! The postman found the last one. I made up lyrics about it: Another man down/Blood on the ground/Lost and found/ Get used to the sound./Another man down/Don’t stick around/You can’t take flight/Suicide Heights

I used to lie in my room at night expecting to see dead bodies falling outside my window like in films.

Nice place I had to live in. Thanks. (2)

Therefore, in the very first pages Jerome exposes his home as a site plagued with pressuring authorities, as well as having a large amount of suicides; a living space conceived as both confining and fatal. Jerome’s last line signifies that the blame for such bleak living space is on the mother, which raises the question whether the mother had any choice in the matter or not, since Kimisi is a poor and single black woman with two children.

Consequently, in the very first pages of his narrative, Jerome’s state of mind reflects that of a typical adolescent. He blames everything and everybody, his living space, the unusually hot weather, his mother, the police, older people and teenage girls. Thus, from his vantage point, all are guilty (except his four-year-old half-sister Shontelle) in preparing the background for what he has done; he tries to become a drug dealer and is murdered by a teenage gang right after his first attempt.

Although Evaristo’s Jerome is an unreliable narrator, in the sense that it is a subjective teenage narration, most of Jerome’s complaints render troubling social facts such as poverty, low-paid jobs, education, race and gender and parenting, yet firstly, the stifling effect of the council estates that this essay focuses on. Anne Power maintains that in Britain, the gap between the poorest people and the average has grown significantly since the late 1970s. People in the lowest income groups are increasingly overrepresented in council housing. Most council housing is built in large, separate, single-purpose estates, therefore area-based poverty has grown. In these areas, housing, income and social factors are interacted to create a “steep decline” (Power 1996, 1535). Cuming likewise underpins that

[g]eographically, estates are often negatively characterized by their marginal status – even when they are situated in inner-city areas, their construction and design has often resulted in a boundedness and segregation from mainstream metropolitan life. Architecturally, too, they are ubiquitous and often physically prominent (high-rises in particular are designed to be seen from afar) [...] To address the space of council housing then is to explore a landscape that lies beyond such categories as the “metropolitan,” “urban,” “suburban,” and even “slum,” [...] its current day incarnation [is] “social dumping grounds”. (2-3)

Apart from what the council housing signifies, as a lived in space, its literally confining spatial structure is depicted in Jerome’s narration as follows: “[m]y room wasn’t a room, it was a cupboard. If I stood in the middle of it and stretched my arms out I could touch both walls” (5), “I could only walk fourteen steps in the whole flat” (9). Therefore, the construction also amplifies their metaphoric entrapment. To avoid the stifling effect, the outbound nearby space, such as a park is not available, either. Jerome reiterates his mother’s yearning for “the good old days” in the 1980s when the youngsters could spend the whole summer playing in the park “pretending it was the countryside” (4). What Evaristo draws on is relevant with social studies; from the mid-1980s Delanty points out, there has been an entirely different view of the city since the neighborhoods had either become ghettos (located on the “edge city”) or “gated communities”, resulting in the fact that the city lost its connection with the community (2003, 56-57). Conveying what his mother related to him, Jerome reveals that “the good old days” has been when the estate was new and “before the riots happened” in the early 1980s which “ruined everything” (4). Shutting down of the youth club, “they” started organizing things for the children to do; “they” referring to the local authorities. Keith states that in the United Kingdom, local authorities are required to work in partnership with other agencies including the police, to develop crime-reduction strategies. However, it contains within it “a moralizing reinvention of individual selves and some straightforward disciplinary measures, such as youth curfews, to create time-spaces in the public sphere where young people will not be allowed” (155). Hence, Evaristo divulges how the strategies of local authorities have developed negative corollaries for the free space of estate inhabitants.

By the same token, conceptualizations of space and place and their significance for both identifications and identity formations on individuals have been the focus for various contemporary disciplines. Reay and Lucey argue that place and identity are “powerfully” connected, but “often in ways which involve active processes of exclusion” (2000, 410), so experiences of places and spaces are “structured in all sorts of ways by broader social power relations which include race, class and age as well as gender” (410) (emphasis original). Place and space conceptualizations also posit gendered disparity because of the “masculinity of the public space and its exclusionary impact on and dangers for females of all ages” (410). Since prevalent anxieties about gangs; “a black crime wave” and “out-of-control drug consumption” all focus exclusively on youth cultures, children living on inner city council estates are highlighted as both at risk and a

ALLS 5(1):169-174, 2014 172 potential risk for others (Reay and Lucey 2000, 411). Children’s understandings of and relationships to the local are powerfully shaped by broader social relations in which class and race are “just as potent as gender” (Reay and Lucey 2000, 425). In Hello Mum class differences among the gangs are salient. The gangs are constructed by black boys of around fifteen who look nineteen because they do not attend school, but rather go to the gym and wear designer outfits. Jerome depicts Kamikaze Kru’s leader Delmar as follows:

Delmar wouldn’t be seen dead in anything from Primark [from which shop Jerome’s mother has to buy their outfit] Labels all the way, ya get me? I always checked out what he wore. Everyone did. That day he had on a black T-shirt with “WU TANG” written across it in big white letters. A pair of True Religion jeans with a real Gucci belt. On his feet? Brand-new Prada sneakers […] His diamond and gold stud earrings were real, too. (30)

Although ironically this affluence is acquired through drugs, the situation is incompatible with what a single poor mother can provide to her teenage son. They all live on the same estate, yet the gang leader Delmar’s affluence is acquired through his brother’s leading a drug traffic which sadly denotes the only way out for poverty, for teenagers. As Garcia states, teenage gangs form at a critical period when adolescents “migrate toward peer relationships and begin to separate from their parents and are faced with “the task to form their own identity” (Garcia 2010, 167).

As for the spatial significance, studies reflect that links between gangs and space are important. Not only gangs are spatially concentrated among disadvantaged neighborhoods, but they also occupy what they term “gang set space”, which is a geographically defined area within a neighborhood where gang members “hang out” (Ralphs et al. 486). These areas are also referred to as “the life space of the gang” (Klein 18). Most teenagers are not capable of realizing that the gangs can only rule the estate; once they cross the boundaries of their terrain, they become ordinary. Jerome realizes that too late, on a walk with the gang leader on his last day: “the crowds was so thick everyone became a blur of faces and voices” (53) “even Delmar couldn’t walk in a straight line anymore” (54). Out of his ruling space, the formidable Delmar becomes a nobody, so losing his self-confidence, he remains quiet.

It is difficult for young people to avoid association with gang members in the same estate. They attend the same schools, youth and community centers; places of worship, sports, music and drama groups, and hung out the same streets (Ralphs et al. 496). Meanwhile, the schools often take insufficient precautions to sustain their students’ safety. In Hello Mum Jerome believes that his school looks like a “mental asylum” (56) and he recounts the rules of the “mental asylum” as follows:

For a start, don’t bring your mobile phone to school or someone will take it off you.

Two, don’t ride your bike to school, ‘cos someone will use chain-cutters on it.

Three, don’t wear platinum, gold or even silver jewellery unless you’ve got a bruv called The Dexter!

Four, don’t carry more than £2 and if you do, hide it in your briefs (not socks ‘cos they’ll make you take off your shoes).

Five, don’t look at anyone you don’t know, ‘cos they might stab you up for disrespecting them.

Six, don’t bring a knife into school ‘cos they’ll search your bag at the entrance. Throw it over the wall instead and pick it up later, yeah?

Seven, don’t take drugs, just sell them.

Eight, if you’re gonna bring in a replica gun, don’t wave it around at assembley ‘cos you’ll end up being excluded.

Nine, join a gang for protection.

Ten, if you can avoid all of the above, get educated. Boring! (56-57) (emphasis mine).

The rules create an ambivalence since “they” in the citation above signifies both the gangs and the school administration which are both “the others” for Jerome. In the picture of school life drawn by Jerome, the school administrators try to prevent violence but they cannot; the gangs also rule in the schools and Jerome’s last remark is highly significant in the way it reveals that education becomes boring for teenagers.

Evaristo also mentions the gangs of girls: Delmar’s sister Delice is beaten badly by a gang of girls because she passed through the gang’s area “even though she was with a friend who lived there” (13). She has been hospitalized for three weeks and when she recovered, her parents sent Delice to Barbados to live with her grandmother. Thereby, Evaristo reveals that another solution to the confinement in the estates is being sent to exile from family. Here an interesting turn in the topic is exposed, which is about the concept of “home” vs “the homeland”. Since the inhabitants of the particular

ALLS 5(1):169-174, 2014 173 estate Evaristo depicts are all black, they are the children of mostly first or second generation immigrants. “Home” is England for the teenagers living in the estate, yet intriguingly, being sent to the original homeland of the parents becomes a threat, since it is an exile from home, family and friends. This particular resolution becomes a threat for Jerome’s best friend Adrian, too; his father threatens Adrian that if he does not obey the curfew, he will be sent back Ghana, to his grandparents.

Jerome, who decides to join a gang and the related drug traffic, is not a violent youth; he is only an adolescent who yearns for a better life style and attaining power that he witnesses among his peers in the gang. Evaristo does not give any evidence about the violent gang-members’ families, yet the narrative implies that Jerome has never seen his father and he hates his step-father who has also deserted them.4 The gang leader Delmar also hates his father who is in jail for murder: “[m]y dad can rot in prison, as far as I’m concerned. He should’ve been more careful, ya get me? As Mum says, only a dad can turn you into a man, innit? Instead I’ve spent my whole life being dragged into prison to see him. Once a month and I’ve always hated it” (59). What Evaristo reveals is the fact that if the father is in jail, the teenage son regards him as a failure and in contrast, the absence of the father in Jerome’s case does not lead to violence, but does not suppress his inclination for crime, either. Accordingly, the outcome of the situation is that the council estates, especially in London, aim at providing a living space for the single mothers, yet ironically, the confined space of the teenagers with similar problems render facility in the formation of the gangs.

The major factor in Jerome’s decision to join a gang is also disclosed as his feeling of injustice caused by a gang attack. He goes to a party at Deptford to his friend Adrian’s cousin Michael’s who is a nineteen-year-old student. The house is attacked by a gang called the Deptford Warriors. The police arrive quickly and the crime is prevented; however, twelve people have to go to the train station to get home and since the gang members follow them, they are once more attacked with “knives and baseball bats” (20). Adrian and Jerome manage to run away, the older ones stay and fight, but the police arrive and no one dies. Adrian’s father learns about the trouble and puts him under “curfew” (23) and threatens him that if his grades do not get better he will be sent to Ghana as I mentioned above. The reason why Adrian does not want to go back to Ghana is highly intriguing: “over there you couldn’t backchat your teachers or elders and if you did they beat you so bad you never did it again. They used canes and everything. Adrian said kids over there was obedient ‘cos they had no choice” so Jerome adds “Sounded like hell to me” (23). For psychologists, though, father involvement is positively associated with children’s peer relationships and psychosocial adjustment, as well as social, emotional, and cognitive development (Leidy et al. 46). What is revealed in Evaristo’s narration is that, Jerome’s single mother tries to discipline her son and fails, whereas Adrian’s father manages to discipline him and has a rewarding outcome since Adrian decides to study at university and become an architect. Jerome becomes quite jealous so tries to discourage Adrian telling him to be realistic, since he believes people like “them” cannot leave that neighborhood because they are “gangsters”. Adrian starts crying so Jerome regrets saying it, but Delmar sees him with Adrian so Jerome leaves him immediately and joins Delmar. This episode suggests that although Adrian does not have any friends, having a disciplinarian father he acquires hope for the future. On the other hand, by choosing a powerful gang and friend, Jerome chooses death. Would a father have saved him from the inevitable? According to most psychologists the answer is probably yes: “fathering matters regardless of family type or ethnic background” (Leidy et al. 2011, 64). Moreover, “fathers make unique contributions to adolescent adjustment above and beyond mothers’ parenting” (64).

Apart from the stifling spatiality of the estates, the society also discriminates black people especially if they are poor and male adolescents, similarly reinforcing that the space they inhabit is unwelcome in the cities. In this vein, Jerome blames the society for what he has become; because he is black, he has been treated like a potential criminal everywhere he went: by the bus drivers, the Fedz” (the Police) and the men in the shops (14). Furthermore, when he walked on the streets girls and women crossed the road as if he was going to “snatch their bags or stab them” (15), starting from when he was about eleven years old. His mother Kimisi succumbs to racial discrimination, but as a teenager Jerome concludes with the frightening remark: “if everyone thinks I’m a scumbug criminal, I’ll be a scumbug criminal” (15). Thereby, ostracized by the white society, confined in a council estate, Jerome cannot see a way out, except for joining a gang to become powerful, and drug dealing to earn a significant amount money, since unfortunately these are the only examples of success he perceives. As Said’s masterpiece Orientalism (1978) also reveals geography is socially constituted, from which we can deduce that so are locations in the cities, since this discursive production of space is created by existing physical and social formations. Eventually, Jerome’s resistance is manifest in a criminal act, yet, although it is adverse, the act is what the society proposes him; either suffer in what you have or make a move.

4Interestingly, there is no mention of Kimisi’s parents, either. However, by Evaristo’s very ingenious technique, Jerome’s father and his family are disclosed in the following fiction Mr Loverman, with a slight change of the last name (Cole-Wallace to Cole-Wilson). The main character Antiguan born Barry’s (Barrington Jedidiah Walker) brother Larry arrives in England earlier than him, has got three sons, his wife dies when the twin boys are very little and the eldest son Melvin six years old. Melvin gets derailed on losing his mother and takes to drugs at a young age and leaves home to return at Larry’s deathbed in 1979. After his father’s death, his uncle Barry relates

As for Melvin? Never did get his act together. Ended up caught in what I call the ‘revolving door for recidivists’–at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Last saw him early nineties. Dudley [Melvin’s brother] told me a few weeks back that one of Melvin’s pickney was

killed by a gang. Boy called Jerome, known as JJ, fourteen years young, lived with his mother, last name Cole-Wilson. We’d not known he existed and apparently Melvin ain’t seen his chile in over ten years.

He failed him. No excuses. He did. (Mr Loverman 162)

ALLS 5(1):169-174, 2014 174 Hollander and Einwohner argue that, resistance can be understood mainly in terms of action and opposition (538) (emphasis original). They note that “resistance includes activity, and of course that activity occurs in opposition to someone or something else” (539). Consequently, confinement leads to resistance in Jerome’s case and ends in his death. Conversely, my contention is that Jerome’s death is a form of his liberation from the estates and the discrimination that the society stifles him with. The author also intriguingly envisions freedom for Jerome by an act of narrative resistance; Jerome is able to narrate his life after his death, as extricated from all the constraints, forever free.

References

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Ravetz, A. Council housing and culture: The history of a social experiment: Abingdon. UK and New York: Routledge, 2001.

Reay Diane and Helen Lucey. “ ‘I don’t really like it here but I don’t want to be anywhere else’: Children and Inner City Council Estates”. Antipode. 32.4 (2000): 410-428.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: Penguin, 1978.

Sauter, Floor, M. David Heyne and P. Michiel Westenberg. “Cognitive Behavior Theraphy for Anxious Adolescents: developmental Influences on Treatment Design and Delivery”. Clinical Child & Family Psychology Review. 12.1 (2009): 310-335.

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ALLS, Vol 5, No 1 (2014)

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