Editorial
This is fragment of the draft for a book entitled "English for Comparative Religious Studies", which Wayne Rimmer will complete for Michael Berman.

English for Comparative Religious Studies

Michael Berman, UK

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Contents
Introduction
Three sample activities

Contents

Introduction

In my Beginning is my End: How to start and end a Course

Pair-work Interviews

From Church Newsletters and Notice Boards: Unintended Jokes

Jokes as Ordering Activities

Words Confused & Words Misused

Texts with pre-, while-, and post-reading tasks

Information Gap Activities

Grammar: Presentations, Reviews & Consolidation

Storytelling

Answer Key & Notes for Teachers

Introduction

The book is designed for undergraduate students of Religious Studies and Theology for whom English is a Foreign or Second Language. Being a qualified and experienced English Language teacher and having postgraduate degrees in Religious Studies, it was not only a book I felt competent to write but also a labour of love. Moreover, as far as it has been possible to ascertain, it is the only book of its kind ever to have been produced, and is thus unique.

An advanced level student, whether of English for Religious Studies, Business English, Medical English or any other form of ESP, can be defined as someone who can live, work, and study in their chosen fields in an English speaking environment. But this does not mean that such a person has reached a ceiling as far as language development is concerned.

Having studied a subject for a very long time, there is a danger of falling into the trap of thinking we know everything there is to know about it. However, there is always more to learn, especially in the case of a living language that is changing all the time. Hopefully, the material offered in this book for such learners and the challenges it sets will, at the same time, prove to be enjoyable. For if language learning is not fun as well as relevant to our needs, we have little incentive to pursue it.

All the materials presented in this volume and the suggestions as to how to use them, are based on the two principles set out below, principles that can serve to guide us in how to be effective in our roles:

• The importance of providing learners with choice, instead of using the same approach with everyone, being sensitive to the fact that we are all unique, each with a different mix of Intelligence Types and Learning Styles, and each coming into the classroom with different personal histories that affect our attitude towards what we do and learn there.
• That ‘the main purpose of higher education is to facilitate and expand students’ understanding’, (Ramsden, 2003, p.8). And if we agree that learning methods ‘must reflect real social practices’ (Chanier, 2000, p. 83), then we have to conclude that learning must be anchored into ‘real-world or authentic contexts that make learning meaningful and purposeful’ (Bonk and Cunningham 1998, p. 27).

Jung once wrote that ‘The purpose of the descent as universally exemplified in the myth of the hero is to show that only in the region of danger … can one find the “treasure hard to attain”’ (Jung in Psychology and Alchemy). Our job as teachers is to provide the right conditions for our learners to undertake such journeys, to empower them so they have the confidence to explore such regions, initially together with us, but then on their own.

Three sample activities

What follows are some notes on the various types of activity that can be found in the book:

Pair-work interviews

You will notice that instead of the teacher deciding on the questions to be discussed, with this type of activity the students are given more of a choice in the matter. When working with larger classes, the learners can then be arranged in circles of eight for the reporting stage, and you can move among the groups.

What I do while listening to the reports is to make notes in two columns, on a sheet of paper or an OHT, of the effective language used and also of the problems that reveal themselves. At the end of the lesson, so as not to interrupt the flow during the productive stage, I then go through these together with the class as a whole. First of all, I focus on the effective language that was produced to provide the learners with positive “strokes”, and then point out the errors, asking them to self-correct if possible and to explain why the utterances were problematic. Obviously this has to be done selectively, just focussing on those points you consider to be the most important to deal with, taking the students’ needs and level into account, so as not to undermine their self-confidence in their ability to get their message across. The last thing you want to do is to inhibit the learners from practising their English, which is why it is important not to overdo the error correction. The aim is to promote fluency, but not at the expense of accuracy.

Words confused and words misused

The learners can work individually on these exercises and then pair up to compare their answers. This way of working appeals to those students who are highly intrapersonal and prefer to work on their own initially before getting together with others. Alternatively, the learners can work in pairs from the outset, and then get together in groups of four to see if they can reach a consensus. This method of working not only appeals to those members of the group who have strong interpersonal skills, but also reduces the likelihood of errors.

Instead of merely asking the students to find the correct answers, you could also ask them to consider why the alternatives are inappropriate. And for homework or follow-up work in class, you could ask them to make sentences of their own with the words they had problems with, to show they now know how to use them. They can then exchange these with another member of the class, and try to correct each other’s work before you look through the sentences and check them.

The voices of birds

A magician once passed through a grove in the forest where a great many brown birds fluttered from tree to tree and filled the air with songs. For a long time he sat and listened, enraptured by their beautiful melodies, but in the end he became very jealous, for he himself could not sing.

At last he felt that he must by some means or other possess the voices of these singing birds, so he called them all together and said:

“It grieves me that the gods have given you all such poor, ugly brown feathers. How happy you would be if you were brilliantly coloured with red, blue, orange, and green!”

And the birds agreed that it was a great pity to be so ugly.

The magician then suggested that by means of his charms he could give them all beautiful feathers in exchange for their voices—which were, after all, of very little use to them, since nobody came into the grove to hear them.

The birds thought over his words, and desired very much the beauty he promised them. So they foolishly agreed to give him their voices, which the magician placed all together in a large calabash. He then used his charms to turn the dull brown feathers of the birds into orange and green and red, and they were very pleased.

The magician hurried away, and as soon as he came to a deserted place he  opened the calabash and swallowed its contents. From that day he had an exceedingly sweet voice, and people came from far and near to listen to his songs.

But the birds were satisfied with their bright feathers. And this is why the most beautiful birds are quite unable to sing.

Taken from Ogumefu, M.I. (1929) Yoruba Legends, London: The Sheldon Press.

The Voices of Birds: Worksheet

Match the numbers with the letters to find explanations for the new vocabulary:

Without looking back at the text, place all the parts of the story in the correct order:

1. A magician once passed through a grove in the forest where a great many brown birds fluttered from tree to tree and filled the air with songs.
2. And the birds agreed that it was a great pity to be so ugly.
3. At last he felt that he must by some means or other possess the voices of these singing birds, so he called them all together and said:
4. But the birds were satisfied with their bright feathers. And this is why the most beautiful birds are quite unable to sing.
5. For a long time he sat and listened, enraptured by their beautiful melodies, but in the end he became very jealous, for he himself could not sing.
6. From that day he had an exceedingly sweet voice, and people came from far and near to listen to his songs.
7. He then used his charms to turn the dull brown feathers of the birds into orange and green and red, and they were very pleased.
8. “It grieves me that the gods have given you all such poor, ugly brown feathers. How happy you would be if you were brilliantly coloured with red, blue, orange, and green!”
9. The birds thought over his words, and desired very much the beauty he promised them. So they foolishly agreed to give him their voices, which the magician placed all together in a large calabash.
10. The magician hurried away, and as soon as he came to a deserted place he  opened the calabash and swallowed its contents.
11. The magician then suggested that by means of his charms he could give them all beautiful feathers in exchange for their voices—which were, after all, of very little use to them, since nobody came into the grove to hear them.

1 ___ 2 ___ 3 ___ 4 ___ 5 ___ 6 ___ 7 ___ 8 ___ 9 ___ 10 ___ 11 ___

“How happy you would be if you were brilliantly coloured with red, blue, orange, and green!” How happy you would probably be if you could speak English perfectly! Now complete the following sentence starters, using the same grammatical structure (2nd Conditional):

1. How happy my boss would be if __________
2. How happy my parents would be if __________
3. How happy my teacher would be if __________
4. How happy my partner would be if __________
5. How happy my colleagues or flatmates would be if __________

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.