RESEARCH PROJECT USING CROSS-CULTURALISM IN EFL LITERTURE-BASED CLASSES AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL

RESEARCH PROJECTRESEARCH PROJECT

USING CROSS-CULTURALISM USING CROSS-CULTURALISM IN EFL LITERTURE-BASED CLASSES IN EFL LITERTURE-BASED CLASSES

AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVELAT THE UNIVERSITY LEVELby HIEN THI MINH DINHby HIEN THI MINH DINH

Part One

INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTION

1. RATIONALE:+ Global interaction has intensified so dramatically that learners cannot isolate themselves from the world community

+ Cross-culturalist teaching finds the cultures in different learners and the learners in different cultures

+ CC provides learners with cross-cultural communication concepts and issues that might help them overcome cultural shocks and bridge the gap between learners from different cultures

2. FOCUS OF THE STUDY:

+ To implement cross-culturalism in the teaching of literature for language students at the university level

3. AIMS OF THE STUDY:

• To develop a more thoughtful and principled theory based on the foundation of reader- response criticism and cross-culturalism

• To portrait the real picture of teaching and learning literature in educational settings

• To enhance the quality of teaching literature at the university level

• To encourage lifelong reading of works of art

• To stimulate more advance learning

• To stimulate personal growth across culture

4. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

For teachers:

• To enhance language teachers’ teaching skills• To provide them with teaching techniques and text-attack skills• To make them aware of cultural aspects in literary texts• To provide them with teaching strategies for solving cultural problems

For students:

• To improve students’ interpretation and their reaction to literary texts• To enhance students’ interest in learning literature • To make students aware of the cultural aspects in literary texts

5. JUSTIFICATION:

• Literature is one of the most obvious and valuable means of attaining cultural insights.• Students can benefit from literatures in many ways.

6. RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

• “What contributions can reader-response criticism and cross-culturalism make to the teaching of literature?”• “How should cross-culturalism be made use of in teaching American contemporary literature at the university level?”

7. SETTING OF THE STUDY:

• The English Department of the College of Foreign Languages of Danang University in Vietnam• The English Department of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of Stanford University in the U.S.A.

Part Two

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND and

METHODOLOGY

LITERATURE REVIEW

_ Main focuses of reader-response criticism (Beach, 1993):

• roles

• purposes

• text types

• contexts

_ Orientations of reader-response criticism (RRC)

• knowledgeable perspective

• experiential perspective

• psychological perspective

• sociological perspective

• cultural perspective

Textual Reader’s knowledge

of convention

Experiential Context Psychological Reader’s engagement or Reader’s cognitive or experience subconscious processes

Reader Text

Social Cultural Reader’s social role Reader’s cultural role, and perceptions of attitudes, contexts

the social context

Source: Five perspectives representing different lenses that illuminate particular aspects of the reader / text / context transaction

(Beach, 1993: 8)

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

I. Linguistic Foundation:

1. Reader-response criticism (RRC)

a. The role of reader in RRT

b. The role of text in RRT

c. The role of teacher in RRT

2. RRC and the teaching of literature

3. Cross-Culturalism (CC)

II. Methodological Foundation:

1. Content-based instructions (CBI) and second language acquisition (SLA)

2. Literature in communicative language teaching (CLT) a. The top-down and bottom-up approaches b. Theory of interactional view

c. Process writing

III. Educational Foundation:

1. CC and Whole Language 2. CC and the Affective Domain in SLT/FLT 3. CC and the Development of Academic in SLT/FLT 4. Prior knowledge in the Teaching and Learning of Literature

METHODOLOGY

I. Research questions:

• “What contributions can cross-culturalism make to the teaching of literature?”• “How should cross-culturalism be made use of in teaching

literature at the university level?”

II. Data processing and data analyzing:

Classroom observations: _ Definition of unit act: The smallest discriminable segment of

communication that can be categorized confidently (Bales, cited in Asher and Simpson, Vol. 1: 1709)

_ Explicit Responses (ExRs): Four patterns of transaction

Explicit Responses (ExRs)

Four patterns of transaction:Total = (Rs in all 5 aspects)/2

a: if responses in each aspect > Tb: if responses in each aspect = Tc: if responses in each aspect < T

Explicit Responses (ExRs)

Four levels of transaction:

Total = (all paragraphs written in each 5 aspect)/2

a: if the total number of the written paragraphs in each aspect > T

b: if the total number of the written paragraphs in each aspect = T

c: if the total number of the written paragraphs in each aspect < T

Part Three

RESULTS

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

K-Rs E-Rs P-Rs S-Rs C-Rs

abc0

FIGURE 1: PATTERN OF FREQUENCY OF THE IMPLICIT RESPONSES

IN OBSERVED CLASSES (AT STANFORD RESEARCH SITE)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80


a

b

c

0

FIGURE 2: PATTERN OF FREQUENCY OF THE IMPLICIT RESPONSES

IN OBSERVED CLASSES (AT DANANG RESEARCH SITE)

0

5

10

15

20


abc0

FIGURE 3: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION St--T IN REAL CLASS (RS1)

0

5

10

15

20


a

b

c

0

FIGURE 4: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION St--I--T IN REAL CLASS (RS1)

0

5

10

15

20


abc0

FIGURE 5: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION St--Sts--T IN REAL CLASS (RS1)

0

5

10

15

20


abc0

FIGURE 6: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION St--Sts--T--I IN REAL CLASS (RS1)

0

5

10

15

20


a

b

c

d

FIGURE 7: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION OF St--I IN REAL CLASS (RS2)

0

5

10

15

20


a

b

c

d

FIGURE 8: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION OF St--I--T IN REAL CLASS (RS2)

0

5

10

15

20


a

b

c

d

FIGURE 9: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION St--Sts--T IN REAL CLASS (RS2)

0

5

10

15

20


a

b

c

d

FIGURE 10: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION St--Sts--T--I IN REAL CLASS (RS2)

0102030405060708090

100

E-Rs 1 E-Rs 3 P-Rs 1 S-Rs 1 S-Rs2 S-Rs3 C-Rs2 C-Rs3 C-Rs4 C-Rs5 C-Rs6

Yes

No

FIGURE 11: PATTERN OF FREQUENCY OF THE RESPONSES IN THE QUESTIONAIRES

(YES/NO QUESTIONS)

0102030405060708090

100

K-Rs 1 K-Rs 2 K-Rs 3 K-Rs 4 K-Rs 5 K-Rs 6 E-Rs 2 E-Rs 5 E-Rs 6 P-Rs 2 P-Rs 3 C-Rs 1

(a)

(b)

(c )

FIGURE 12: PATTERNS OF FREQUENCY OF THE RESPONSES IN THE QUESTIONNAIRES (MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS)

Notes: (1) St—Text (3) St—I—Text(2) St—Sts—Text (4) St—I--Sts—Text

(a) 70% – 100%(b) 30% - 69%(c) 0% - 20%

Types of Responses Types of Transaction Levels of Transaction(1) (2) (3) (4) (a) (b) (c)

Subculture-Related Responses

Nationalculture-Related Responses

Crossculture-Related Responses

Notes: K: Knowledge-related Responses

E: Experience-related Responses

P: Psychology-related Responses

S: Society-related Responses

C: Culture-related Responses

Types of Response

Aspects of ResponsesK E P S C

Subsulture- Related Responses

Nationalculture-Related Responses

Crossculture-Related Responses

Part Four

DISCUSSIONDISCUSSION

1. Empathy and Personality

Daniel Lerner in The Passing of Traditional Society writes:

• Empathy… is the capacity to see oneself in the other fellow’s situation. This is an indispensable skill for people moving out of traditional settings. Ability to empathize may make all the difference, for example, when the newly mobile persons are villagers who grew up knowing all the extant individuals, roles and relationships in their environment. Outside his village or tribe, each must meet new individuals, recognize new roles, and learn new relationships involving himself…

(Luce and Smith, 1987)

• High empathic capacity is the predominant personal style only in modern society, which is distinctively industrial, urban, literate, and participant. Traditional society is non-participant—it deploys people by kinship into communities isolated from each other and from a center…


• “Transpection is an effort to put oneself in the head … of another person. One tries to believe what the other person believes, and assume what the other person assumes… Transpection differs from analytical “understanding.” Empathy is a projection of feelings between two persons with one epistemology. Transpection is a trans-epistemological process which tries to learn a foreign belief, a foreign assumption, a foreign perspective, feelings in a foreign context, and consequences of such feelings in a foreign context. In transpection a person temporarily believes whatever the other person believes. It is an understanding by practice.”

• Traditional peoples: Unable to imagine a viewpoint other than that associated with fixed roles in the context of a local culture.

• Modern peoples: Able to imagine and learn a variety of roles in the context of a national culture.

• Post-modern peoples: Able to imagine the viewpoint of roles in foreign cultures.


2. Cross-cultural Awareness

Levels of cross-cultural awarenessThere are four level of cross-cultural awareness as follows:

_________________________________________________________ I Awareness of superficial Tourism, textbooks, Unbelievable, i.e.,

or very visible cultural National Geographic exotic, bizarre traits: Stereotypes

II Awareness of significant Culture conflict Un believable, i.e., & subtle cultural traits that situations frustrating, irrational

contrast markedly with one’s own

III Awareness of significant Intellectual analysis Believable, cognitive

& subtle cultural traits that contrast markedly with

one’s own

VI Awareness of how another Cultural immersion: Believable because of culture feels from the living the culture subjective familiarity

standpoint of the insider

(Source: Hanvey, cited in Luce and Smith, 1987: 20)

3. Literature and Cross-cultural Learning Experience Teaching American literature these days means dealing regularly with

complicated questions about the texts we teach. It also means asking additional questions about the approaches we take in our classrooms. What teaching challenge do new texts such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved or Art Spiegelman’s Maus pose, and what opportunities do they offer. How is our teaching of more familiar texts such as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn shaped by recent scholarship.

(Gere and Shaheen, 2001)

To make a claim for multi-culturalism is not… to suggest the juxtaposition of several cultures whose frontiers remain intact, nor it is to subscribe to a bland “melting pot” type of attitude that would level all differences. It lies instead, in the intercultural acceptance of risks, unexpected detours, and complexities of relation between break and closure. Every artistic excursion and theoretical venture requires that boundaries be ceaselessly called to question, undermined, modified, and reinscribed.

(Trinh, cited in Brannon and Greene, 1997: 50)

The John Wayne Style 1. I can go it alone

2. Just call me John 3. Pardon my French 4. Check with the home office 5. Get to the point 6. Lay your cards on the table 7. Don’t just sit there. Speak up! 8. Don’t take no for an answer

9. One thing at a time 10. A deal is a deal 11. I am what I am (Toward Internationalism, Luce and Smith: 1987)

Part Five

CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS and and

SUGGESTIONSSUGGESTIONS

A. CONCLUSIONS

I. CC AND ITS LINGUISTIC CONTRIBUTIONS

• Reader/text transaction in CC helps re-evaluate values of literary work.

• CC asserts the important role of individual reader in the learning process

• CC evokes aesthetic readings

• CC stimulates critical thinking and creative writing

• CC helps students be aware of their interpretations

• CC activates basic knowledge

• CC forms a new function of literature

II. CC AND ITS EDUCATIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS

• CC evokes aesthetic feelings

• CC enhances readers’ appreciation and enjoyment of literary work

• CC evokes human emotions and relationships

• CC improves personality and increases cross-cultural learning experience

III. CC AND ITS SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTRIBUTIONS

• CC helps readers be aware of other cultures

• CC helps readers make sense of life via literature

• CC enhances cross-cultural learning experience and personal growth

• CC increases self-awareness and cultural awareness

• CC increases cultural awareness

• CC increases sensitivity and sympathy towards others

B. IMPLICATIONS

1. For teachers of literature:

• Help teachers be aware of the connection between language and culture

• Freeing LTs from conventional ideas of the traditional approach

2. For students: • Developing student self-awareness and self-identity in the

process of learning • Encouraging LSts to take risks • Encouraging language acquisition• Expanding students’ awareness of cultures of other nations• Educating the whole person

C. SUGGESTIONS

1. Identify seven dimensions of importance to cross-cultural competence

a. The capacity to be flexibleb. The capacity to be nonjudgmentalc. Tolerance for ambiguityd. The capacity to communicate respecte. The capacity to personalize one’s knowledge and perceptionsf. The capacity to display sympathyg. The capacity for turn taking

(Ruben, 1976)

2. Include both bottom-up and top-down techniques 3. Activating the students’ schemata 4. Providing the necessary historical or cultural background

5. Using questions to elicit students’ responses related to social and historical issues

a. Objects implying cultural values b. Questions eliciting students’ responses related to beliefsc. Questions eliciting students’ responses related to lifestylesd. Questions eliciting students’ responses related to languagee. Questions eliciting students’ responses related to location settingf. Questions eliciting students’ responses related to point-of-view

Thank you for your listeningThank you for your listening

Documents

RESEARCH PROJECT USING CROSS-CULTURALISM IN EFL LITERTURE-BASED CLASSES AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL