Teaching About the Environment in the Foreign Language Classroom

Lois Grossman Tufts University

ABSTRACT The author; a Spanish instructor and OPltester; attended a workshop on inmducing en- vironmental issues into classroom cumkulum. She sham her experience and the materials she dewloped for teaching about the enuironment in Spanish. Her approach incorporates oral proficiency goals and is based on authentic materials that are accompanied by worksheets that include prereading aercises, small-group discussion activities and structured conversation and composition suggestions.

Introduction In May of 1991 a two-week workshop was con-

ducted at Tufts University, by the Tufts Environmen- tal Literacy Institute (TELI). The TEU program is ad- ministered through the Tufts Center for Envi- ronmental Management. The short-term goal of the Institute is to educate faculty about environmental issuesso that they can then educate students. The long-range goai is to ensure that all students who graduate from Tufts are familiar with the critical en- vironmental problems facing the world today, such as global warming, ozone depletion, destruction of rainforests. Students must also be made aware of ongoing efforts, worldwide, to mitigate those prob lems. Such efforts include debt-for-nature swaps in Latin America, Mexico’s program to reduce city driving, and new “bioclimatic” housing designs in Spain, to mention a few that are specific to the Spanish-speaking world.

Faculty who commit to the TELI program also commit to designing new curriculum or modifying existing curriculum to include environmental issues. They are given a modest summer stipend to underwrite their research, and they are asked to present their curriculum changes in a o n d a y follow-up workshop at the end of the summer.

In addition to thirty Tufts faculty in the 1991 group, there were also panelist/participants from Brazil, the(then)Soviet Union, South Korea, and In- dia. The faculty participants represented more than twenty academic departments from the sciences,

Lois Gmsrnan (Ph.D., Rutgers University) is a lechrrrr in Spanish at rifts University, Medford, MA.

humanities and social sciences, including American Studies, Drama, Geology, Mathematics, and Occupational Therapy, to indicate the diversity.

The Spanish proled The Spanish project was undertaken with the

support of the Spanish coordinator and the Chair- man for Romance Languages. The goal was to prepare a reading and an accompanying guide for each course of the six-semester language sequence at Tufts: Elementary Spanish 1 and 2, Intermediate Spanish 3 and 4, and Conversation and Composi- tion 21 and 22. These readings will be included each semester in those courses and will be updated as newer materials become available. In addition, there is often a special Contemporary lssues section of Conversation and Composition 22, in which the class spends at least three weeks on environmen- tal issues.

The Readings Spanish 1: Excerpts from “La arquitecturu

bioclimcitica, ” from the Spanish magazine Nutura (see below under Sources), which describe new building practices in Spain, based on orienting houses to prevailing sun and wind patterns of each region and relying on local materials and traditional designs that have proven their practicality through centuries of use. The portions chosen were the In- troduction, which stresses the valueof alternative energy sources - solar, wind, geothermal, etc. - and segments on the importance of the solar orien- tation of windows and the insulating properties of walls. The reading was tied to a unit on “Elhogur,”

Fowign Language Annals, 26, No. 1, 1993

FOREICNLANGUACEA”ALS - W‘G 1993

which introduced some of the relevant vocabulary. Spanish 2: A short article from the Spanish

newspaper El Pa& that deals with pollution prob lems in Mexico City. The article was accompanied by two photos of the city skyline, one in which the buildings are visible and the other in which they are practically obliterated by smog. This reading is tied to Chapter 17 of the first-year text, Encuentms, which begins with a dialogue about traffic and pollution in Mexico City. The article has many cognates of technical and medical words - ‘knkrmedades pulmonares y respimtorias, ” %xido de nitdgenq” “pproductos tdxicos,” etc.- which make it fairly easy to follow. It also contains statistical data on numbers of vehicles and people living in the city, which helps students to grasp the size of the city and its problems and to review number as well.

Spanish 3: A onepage essay from Greenpeace called “&libs a la energia limpia?” This is an ex- cellent and accessible piece on one of the hidden environmental costs of the Gulf War: lower prices for oil. It points out that when oil prices are artificial- ly low, as in the United States, there is little incen- tive to conserve or to invest in research on less polluting, renewable fuel sources.

Spanish 4: This course has a series of required debates, one of which was dedicated to en- vironmental issues. The intermediate text, Un paso mds, has a reading titled “La nueva conciencia ecolbgica,” which mentions several major en- vironmental problems, including ozone depletion and acid rain, tied to using fossil fuels. As a follow- up to the reading, students all got a sheet setting out a debate on nuclear energy. The pro side favors nuclear power as a way to cut dependence on fossil fuels and imported oil and as a way to prevent drill- ing in Arctic wilderness areas. The contra position is based on one page of a Greenpeace pamphlet which all students were given to read that ad- vocates closing the nuclear power plants of Spain. As with most Greenpeace literature, the pamphlet refutes industry positions as it makes its own points, thus providing information that both sides of the debate can use.

Spanish 21: This course also uses several debates but has no text material relating to the environ- ment. As a lead-in to an environmental debate, students received aonepage information sheet that

contained a prkis of parts of a long article on solid waste and recycling that appeared in the magazine Natum. They also received a Greenpeace pamphlet titled “Produccion limpia: Una alternativa ecoldgica de desamllo industrial,” which argues that current wasteful and polluting industry prac- tices must beeliminated at the source and not dealt with after the fact. The debate itself is between the industrialists and recyclers on one side, whose posi- tion is that the overwhelming cost of radical new technology makes it impractical, and, on theother side, those representing the Greenpeace position, espousing a total revamping of prevailing industry pat terns.

Spanish 22: Instructors were given a lengthy ar- ticle on James Lovelocks Gaia hypothesis for their own information. Lovelock and others believe that the earth is essentially a single living organism that has its own survival standards. If the human species makes the planet uninhabitable for humans, humans may die out, but life on earth will survive. Students were given a much shorter and less technical article on the Gaia theory, along with a reading and discussion guide to facilitate conversation.

The Reading Guides The methodology on which the guidedwork-

sheets are based is modeled after LSablhs que.. . ?, (VanPatten, Lee, Ballman, and Dvorak, 1992), a first-year text organized around informational readings that encourages reading for ideas without word-for-word translation. At the lower levels, read- ings not carefully introduced and worked with tend to become overwhelming and frustrating for many students. The reading guides break down the assignment into 1) prereading exercises, 2) preread- ing vocabulary building, 3) parasraph-by-pamgraph reading tasks, 4) conversation exercises, and 5 ) o p tional writing exercises. The first four tasks are designed to be carried out in class in small groups so that students can help each other. The guides are written entirely in Spanish, even for first-semester students. The only English appears in the form of a glossary of unfamiliar and nonessential vocabulary. There were no guides for the debates, but the preparation sheets introduced essential cognates and glossed important terms.

Paso /-Antes de leer. Prereading exercises

88

asked students to look at the title, subtitles, paragraph headings, photo captions, etc., of the reading. A series of statements potentially related to the reading followed. Students were asked to pick out the ones they expected to find explored in the reading. At a later point they were asked to return to this step and verify their choices.

Prereading vocabulary building exercises were not always practical, since the essential terms were widely scattered in the reading. In other cases, it was more useful to focus on key words and phrases before reading. For instance, the first paragraph of the Spanish 2 reading on Mexico City had sixteen cognates which students were asked to list before starting to read. The cognate search gave students some parameters for the article and made it easier to read the opening paragraph'for ideas later. For the Spanish 3 reading there were two prereading vocabulary sections. The first was a six-item match- ing exercise giving Spanish definitions for critical terms, i.e., la marea negra-agua del mar cubier- ta de petnjleo, como Prince William Sound, and la energia renouable-las eneqias sin h i r e (solaK edlica [del uiento], etc.). A second section gave a glossary with English definitions and related Spanish words, i.e., quema = burning, dequemar; rendimiento = yield, de rendir, and so forth.

Whenever possible, definitions and synonyms were provided in Spanish, not only to build vocabulary but to encourage circumlocution, a ma- jor oral proficiency goal.

phso Il-Lectura. In general, this section took students through the whole reading in stages. In some cases, there were natural divisions and subheadings that were followed but more com- monly, the reading guide went paragraph by paragraph, with specific questions that students were to answer at each step. Students were in- structed to read without looking up words (except for those given in the guide) and were directed to one idea at a time. For example, the last Lectura question for the Spanish 2 reading on Mexico City is:

Los u'ltimos dos pcirrafos mencionan dos medidas [measures] que han implementado 10s mexicanos para reducir la contamina- cidn. Lean estos parrafos otra uez. Polabras

necesarias: rodeada [surrounded], decenas [tens], enuenenamiento [poisoning], culpa [fault], particulares [private], H i m 0 = muy malo, urbe = ciudad, temporal = no per- manente, cierre = accidn de cerrar:

Escribe las medidas aqut 1. 2.

&so Ill-Conuersacidn. This section gave students general questions to answer, based on the informa- tion they developed in the previous section. For in- stance, the follow-up to the section quoted above is this:

Miren otra vet las dos medidas que escribieron am'ba. &on igualmente efectim? LQue'soluaones puede oFrecer su grupo a 10s problemas de la contaminacidn urbana? icuciles son las ciudades mcis contaminadas en nuestro pak?dEn otros pakes?

Another conversation exercise for this unit asks students to survey their group to find out how many live in large cities or small towns and then compare the group survey with other group surveys to get a sense of the demographics of the whole class.

Poso IV-Composicidn. For the upper levels, a series of suggestions for writing is enough. For first- year students, a guided composition is an option. Below is the beginning of the guided composition for the Mexico City reading:

Las ciudades gmndes tienen muchas uenta- jas [advantages] y muchas desuentajas. Escribe una composicidn siguiendo este modelo. No es necesario seguirlo exact- amente. Las principales uentajas de uiuir en una ciudadson __ - Y - - phra mies especialmente importante

The goal of this guided composition is to provide practice in writing and to help students to develop argumentation skills, an important oral proficiency goal.

Assessment of Effectiveness Colleagues were generally very receptive to

89

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS - SPRZNC 1993

teaching these materials in their sections and also very supportive of the TELl goals. They were especially appreciative of the worksheets, which were accompanied by an instructor’s version with all the answers printed out. A follow-up question- naire administered at the end of the semester show- ed that, for the most part, the readings and activities were interesting for teachers and students alike. The one that worked best was the Spanish 3 reading on clean energy, although the Spanish 2 reading was also well received. The most prob- lematic was the Spanish 1 reading. It was perceiv- ed as interesting but too difficult. Of course, it is no coincidence that the readings work better as students know more language; nevertheless, on the basis of the feedback, the Spanish 1 reading was changed. The new reading is tied to units that come later in the semester. It consists of excerpts from two brochures from a McDonald’s restaurant in Spain-one on nutrition and one on McDonald’s environmental policy. The nutrition pamphlet is relatively easy to follow after the introductory food unit. The environmental reading is more abstract. They were tried out in a few classes and again the chief complaint is that they were too difficult, although students did find them interesting. Next semester, they will be presented separately: the nutrition reading will follow the introductory food unit and the environmental one will follow the sec- ond food unit, in order to spread out the work. Reading is difficult for beginning students, and the only way to make it easier is to do more of it.

The Contemporary Issues Course This section of Spanish 22 (Conversation and

Composition) is based on magazine and newspaper articles and includes a three- week module on the environment. Some of the articles excerpted for the lower-level courses were used here in their entire- ty -‘ ‘La arquitectura bioclimdtica,” ‘2Adids a la energja limpia?”- and this section did the Gaia reading as well as the produccidn limpia debate. There were other, smaller readings: a brief one on la onda verde in Colombia and a short piece from a Guatemalan newspaper, encouraging citizens to be aware of conservation measures they could per- sonally take to conserve more natural resources. There was as broad a spectrum as possible of source materials so that students could be aware of and

compare the level of social consciousness in more and in less industrialized nations. The class held successful debates on clean production and on high versus low petroleum prices, which grewout of the clean energy reading. Students had a required oral presentation, and one was given during this period on an environmental theme. One of the four ma- jor compositions was also devoted to the environ- ment. The topic wassiyopudiera resolwrunprob lema ambients[, senh ... Again, this assignment was geared to oral proficiency goals of supporting opi- nion and hypothesizing.

The exams for this course were also designed with oral proficiency guidelines in mind. The gram- mar portions are all contextualized and creative. The exam on the environmental unit had several grammar points. Use of thesubjunctive was tested with a series of open-ended statements that students were to complete logically. A few follow:

1. Tendremos hentes de energa renovable a condicidn de.. .

2. No veremos mucho progreso ambiental sin que.. .

3. Creia que la arquitectura bioclimdtica no. ..

The por/para section consisted of quotes from the readings with the por or para deleted, which students had to fill in.

The vocabulary section was designed to en- courage circumlocution. It consisted of textual quotes with certain expressions underlined (drawn from required vocabulary for the reading). Students were asked to express those words or phrases with another Spanish equivalent. Sometimes a synonym was effective in these cases. Most often, however, students had to find less direct ways to ex- press the idea in Spanish, as in this example:

Vanas regiones del mundo se secarihn, mientras otras recibinhn demasiada Iluoia, la cual huy sin penem elsuelo, inunda ribs y valles.. .

It was rare that any two students used exactly the same words to answer, unless they had studied together, a practice that was always encouraged.

The essay sections of the exams were worth 30 percent and offered two or three choices, again designed to have students take and support a

90

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS - SPRING 1993

position. The essay choices for this unit were: I. &dl es el futuro de la energia alter- nativa en este pa&? En tu respuesta, habla sobre algunas fuentes de energia renovable y las ventajas y desventajas presentes y futuras asociadas con ellas.

2. Ambos el artkulo de Guatemala y la pieza sobre la casa bioclimdtica ponen e‘n- fasis sobre la necesidad de vivir en armonia con el medio ambiente, iQue‘constituye para ti una vida en armonia con el ambiente?ln- cluye en tu respuesta detalles sobre la vivien- da ideal y que‘ usanbs como fuente principal de energia.

3. Segh lo que leimos, jcudl fue la peor consecuencia de la gueva en el Golf0 y por que?

Although there is value in the isolated readings done in the other courses, there are particular ad- vantages to doing an extended unit-on any topic, but especially on a topic such as the environment, which is complex and requires a new mindset for many students. The United States is fortunate to have such seemingly unlimited resources that it is difficult to understand that they are not limitless and that many are running out already. At the same time, the size and pervasiveness of problems like ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect can easi- ly overwhelm and depress students once they do begin to grasp them. For this reason, it is helpful to do small segments, such as the topics outlined in this article, and couch them in the most construc- tive way. Debates are intrinsically valuable for this purpose, especially the two explained above, because they are not “right/wrong” debates, but rather contrasting approaches to the problems that students can explore and examine.

Furthermore, because of the interrelatedness of all environmental issues and the concomitant vocabulary overlap, students become successive ly more knowledgeable with each activity. Discus- sions and debates become more intellectually and linguistically sophisticated as students grow com- fortable with the concepts and vocabulary. By the unit exam, students are able to write on the com- plex essay topics with considerable authority and skill.

The measurable growth in student performance

shown on the exams and compositions is an ex- tremely rewarding teaching outcome. An extended unit of this kind could probably be as effective for a good fourth-year or a fifth-year high school group as it was for a third-year college class. Whenever the Contemporary Issues course was offered in the fall semester, there were several first-semester freshmen in it. Most had taken at least four years of high school Spanish and had well-developed reading and speaking skills and performed very well. And although this article is concerned with Spanish, similiar materials exist in other languages The Greenpeace materials are also printed in Italian, and undoubtedly in French and German. Since the green movement in France and Germany is much older than in Spain, there is probably much more material available. There may be more trouble with availability of Russian-language materials because of past censorship, but the Soviet panelist at the 1991 TELI program brought with him newly released information on Chemobyl and other situations now available to the public. Faculty members from German, Russian, and French courses attended the 1992 TELl program and are currently preparing materials for their courses. It is hoped that as students progress through the Spanish and other language sequences at Tufts, they will build on the readings of the previous courses, achieving-albeit more gradually-the vocabulary mastery and linguistic and technical sophistication that students demonstrated by the end of the thteeweek unit in Contemporary Issues And, since faculty all over campus are covering en- vironmental issues, students can call upon material leamed in other courses to enrich class discussion.

Why Teach about the Environment in a Foreign Language Class?

There are three principal reasons: 1) The material is available and it is linguistical-

ly and culturally authentic. 2) Students at the high school and college levels

are often well informed about-and concerned about-environmental issues. They enjoy talking in class about matters they perceive to be real and important .

3) The changes that must take place to ensure a sustainable future can only be brought about through an educated citizenry. The TELl goal of

91

FXWIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS - SPRING 1993

environmental literacy is one that all educators can and must help to achieve.

Sources and Mailing Addresses Although not everyone can have the invaluable

experience of attending a TELl workshop, anyone can find and incorporate environmental materials into his or her courses. For an outstanding general work to read as background on environmental issues, a recent and eminently readable book is Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit by Senator (now Vice President) A1 Gore (Houghton Mifflin, 1992).

There is no lack of material in Spanish on the en- vironment, but accessibility naturally varies. Since Tufts is near Boston, it has access to many interna- tional publications, and the Romance Languages department subscribes to the weekly international edition of El h k (Miguel Yuste, 4 0 28037 Madrid).

Two extremely useful monthly magazines are In- tegral (PO Maragall, 371; 08032 Barcelona), and Natura (G & J Espafia Natura; Marques de Villamagna, 4; 28001 Madrid). Integral is new-age in tone, but always carries articles directly concern- ed with the environment. The December ’91 issue had a major article on “ecological plastics,’’ for in- stance. Natura, as the name implies, is more about flora and fauna, but also regularly does major articles on environmental issues. A recent issue had a long piece on solar and electric automobiles.

Another promising source is Ecologia y sociedad, a new monthly magazine whose first issue was March, 1992 (Gran Via, 67,2O derecha, 28013 Madrid). It is similar to Natura, but focuses more on social and consumer issues. The first

volume has an editorial on global pollution, a survey entitled “Los espafioles demandan mayor informacidn medioambiental,” and an article on “La ecoindustria,” as well as several items on con- servation issues.

Am6ricas is a bimonthly magazine available in English or Spanish (P.O. Box 2013; Knoxville, Iowa 50197-2103). It usually has at least one or two short pieces on environmental issues in the Americas.

Lo mejoris a compendium of articles from the in- ternational press translated into Spanish (Lo Mejor Promo 2000; Oxford 23; Zona Rosa; Mkico 06600 D.F.). The Gaia article was published in the April 1991 issue.

Another valuable publication, although not strongly environmental in focus, is Muy interesante, a glossy and welldesigned monthly magazine by the publishers of Natura that covers a wide range of topics (G & J Espafia M U Y Marques de Villamagna, 4; 28001 Madrid).

Without any doubt, the most useful information came from Greenpeace (Boletines Informativos Trimestrales; Rodriguez San Pedro 58; 28015 Madrid), which seems to be well established and organized in Spain. A colleague visited the Madrid office and was able to get at least twelve different pamphlets and publications on environmental issues in various regionsof Spain. The publications are generally well written and informative and lend themselves well to debate, since Greenpeace always takes a clear position and marshals arguments against contraty positions, which then allows the reader to reconstruct the contrary posi- tions for the purpose of debating them.

92