Book Boxes: An Introduction to Literature – with a Small “L”
Neil McBeath, UK
Neil McBeath served as a uniformed Education Officer in the Royal Air Force of Oman from 1981 to 2005. During that time he gained two Masters degrees and the Omani Distinguished Service Medal. Refusing to renew contract in 2005, he taught for two years with BAE Systems in Saudi Arabia. He has now returned to Oman and is teaching at the Sultan Qaboos University. E-mail: neilmcbeath@yahoo.com
Menu
Introduction
Extensive reading
Book boxes
Types of books – films, classics, non-fiction
Levels of reading
The impact of extensive reading
References
I would like to start this paper with a quotation that recently appeared in the IATEFL Global Issues SIG website:
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them”
Ray Bradbury.
There is nothing contentious about this quotation but, of course, Bradbury makes the assumption that “people” are reading books in the first place. For many teachers who are teaching in the Arab Gulf, this is not an assumption that can be safely made. When I began teaching in the Sultanate of Oman in 1981, it was rare to find a recruit to the Sultan’s Armed Forces who had completed his Primary education. Effectively, my students were first generation literates. It was safe to assume that their fathers were only barely literate, and that their mothers were completely illiterate, even in Arabic.
Twenty-seven years on, that situation has changed. The students currently in Secondary and Tertiary education are the offspring of those first generation literates, and yet they may still work under a major handicap. Only in the societies of the Arab Gulf did universal access to colour TV and video recorded entertainment arrive before universal literacy, and it shows. Many students come from essentially “bookless” homes. Such books as there are can be categorized as Arabic theological works; school books, presentation volumes and some technical manuals, often connected with ICT. Books, “real books”, books that can be read and re-read for pleasure, will be conspicuous by their absence.
A second problem here is that few students will have access to a source of reading material outside the home. Anecdotal evidence abounds of schools where “libraries” are little more than locked showcases; places that the head teacher displays to visitors, but which are never used by the students. Bookshops are few and those that do exist would be better categorized as stationers. In the smaller towns and villages of the Arab Gulf, there may be no bookshop at all. In the cities, many tailor their English language stock to expatriate tastes, and many Arabic bookshops stock Islamic books to the exclusion of almost everything else. Book Fairs are only annual events – buy now, or wait for another year.
Against this background, I would suggest that it is crucial for English language teachers in the Arab Gulf to do all that they can to foster extensive reading in English. Unlike their counterparts in Eastern Europe and South America, they cannot hope that students who read in their L1 will transfer the habit to the L2, because few of Arab Gulf students read extensively in Arabic. Teachers must therefore encourage and develop the reading habit.
There is, of course, a rich literature to support the use of extensive reading. Hafiz and Tudor (1989), Davies (1995), Nuttall (1996), Leather (2001), Appleton (2003), Sheu (2003) and Davidson and Williams (2005) all endorse the activity, although Harvey (2005; 2006) and Cavallera and Leiguarda (2006) have recently warned that the reading process is a complicated one.
To begin with, there is the question of the quality of books. When I began teaching EFL in the mid-1970’s, there were very few graded or simplified readers on the market, and those that were available were frequently of poor quality. Maley (2006) has paid tribute to the work of Philip Prowse in helping to develop the production of “readers originally written for language learners, rather than the simplification of existing works” (P. 10), but even when such titles are available, they are useless until placed in the hands of the reader.
In the Sultanate of Oman, the English Language Teaching Development Unit of the Ministry of Education and Youth was always enthusiastic about extensive reading, and this was a considerable boon. As early as 1983, when I was Head of English at the Sultan’s Armed Forces School, every English teacher had his own Longman Book Box.
These were moulded plastic trays that slid into a stout cardboard sleeve. The trays could hold up to 25 different Longman titles, and could be propped up so that they displayed a dozen different covers at any one time. They were light enough to be portable, adaptable to the extent that other titles could be added to the display, and they were both attractive and an excellent resource.
I was less enthusiastic, however, about the English Language Teaching Advisor’s advocacy of a “new and exciting” scheme for the use of these boxes. This scheme was a league table, to be hung in each class, indicating how many, and which, books each boy had read. The idea was that this would introduce an element of competition, and would induce the boys to read more.
My first objection to this approach was that it was anything but new. When George Orwell was at his Prep School in the South of England, before the First World War, the Headmaster’s wife awarded an annual prize to the boy who, in her opinion, had read the “best” list of books during his holidays. This was, of course, a subtle way of vetting what the boys were reading in their free time, and it assumes rather sinister overtones when one realizes that a grown woman was effectively spying on boys who were less than twelve years old.
The Penguin Teacher’s Guide to Using Graded Readers (Dawson 1998), of course, actually includes a photocopiable league table. This “resource” is described as a Class Library Chart, but it is clearly made available to advance the company’s own interest. Any publisher will endorse an approach that will lead to increased consumption of its own products, and the display of the Class Library Chart almost automatically ensures that the students in a class will read at least two books.
So far as “exciting” goes, I would suggest that extensive reading has always been, and always will be, what Maley (2008; 147) describes as “a private, individual activity”. It is also an activity that depends on personal choice. It is not an activity where any element of competition should be encouraged, and indeed, Scott (2006) such an approach might well be incongruent with Arab Gulf students’ “tribal cultural dynamics that encourage harmony /and/ avoidance of conflict” (P. 87)
At the same time, the element of personal choice in the reading material may cause difficulties when we come to the “Class Reader”. Obviously, most teachers would prefer to see their students reading Class Readers than have them read nothing at all, but the larger the class, the less likely it is for every reader to be motivated, far less excited, by the Ministry of Education’s current “set book.”
In the first place, the very format of the graded reader is limiting. Philip Prowse once described the creation of such readers as being akin to holding a boxing match in a phone booth. With the best will in the world, it is difficult to craft a masterpiece when limited to a vocabulary of 200, 300, 600 or even 1200 words, depending in the level. One notable casualty in this regard was the Penguin Graded Reader’s retelling of Little Women (Alcott/Albers 2000), where an attempt to drop down to Beginner Level (300 words)
effectively obliterated every trace of difference between the four March girls. A simplified plot remained, but characterization disappeared.
Extensive reading, however, offers a resolution to the problem of the set text. An extensive reading scheme offers choice, no matter how the scheme is organized. The Book Corners endorsed by McGarrell (2004) are ideal for Primary Schools or Young Learner classes, and in Secondary or Tertiary education the scheme can be implemented within libraries or self-access learning centres. All these initiatives, however, rely on the availability of physical space, and that may be in short supply.
When I was working at the Force Ordnance Service School of the Royal Army of Oman, where space was limited, I used the experience that I had gained at the SAF School, and re-introduced the Book Box, albeit on a smaller scale. For an effective Book Box, all that is required is an empty carton made of strong cardboard, a selection of single copies of graded readers, an exercise book and a pen.
Cut the carton diagonally down two sides, and cut horizontally across the third side. Covering the carton with some sort of wrapping paper will make it more attractive, and laminating it will help to protect the contents. Put the books in the box, with the stems outwards so that the students can read the titles. Use the exercise to record who has borrowed which book, and when.
The principal objections to this scheme, of course, are that books are valuable and attractive, and that they will go missing. Neither of these objections, however, is particularly valid. Graded readers can be obtained for nothing. At every ELT Conference it is possible to obtain two or three new titles. Going to a publisher’s launch at a conference guarantees a selection of free books, and review copies are always yours to keep. Graded readers are also often available at knock-down prices in book sales. If free books go missing, then teachers have a perfectly legitimate right to feel irritated, but they should never be out of pocket.
a. Films
At this point I have to admit a prejudice, and state that I have had particularly encouraging results from using titles from the Penguin Graded Readers range. Unlike many other publishers, Penguin has taken the trouble to create a product that looks like a “real book”. Their graded readers are slim, and they always have a set of comprehension questions at the back, but they do not patronize the reader, and that is a particularly important consideration for teenage learners.
That having been said, not all Penguin titles are equally successful. Many of the Penguin Readers are film or TV series tie-ins, and in the case of the books linked to TV series, the titles may promise more than is delivered. Hercules – By the Sword (Boggs 1996); Hercules – Serpent’s Shadow (Boggs 2000) and Sweet Valley High; The Stolen Diary (Williams 1999) were all rejected by students at the Royal Army of Oman’s School of Armour, primarily, I suspect, because the original TV series were aimed at viewers who were no more than thirteen years old.
The Hercules stories are small budget retellings of some of the Greek myths, made with casts of half a dozen, when the material requires epic scale. The Sweet Valley High drama concerns the usual banal girl-boy-misunderstanding-resolution plot that one might expect, but the book did raise one interesting cultural misunderstanding.
One sergeant who read the book was deeply shocked when, at the school prom, the hero offered the heroine “a drink”. Within the setting of an American High School, it is clearly understood that this beverage would have to be a non-alcoholic drink. Alcohol on school premises is TOTALLY forbidden.
For those unversed in the ways of American High School life, however, the assumption is far less obvious. The “students” at Sweet Valley High drive, they go on unchaperoned dates, they talk endlessly about their private lives and they never appear to do a stroke of academic work, so why should they not drink alcohol?
The same sergeant, interestingly, was not at all disconcerted by the book Babe – A Pig in the City (King-Smith 1999), though I found it very weak. Like Jumanji (Strasser 1996) and The Borrowers (Norton/Smith 2000), Babe was “an action-packed romp”, a film aimed at a pre-teen or young teenage audience that relied on pace and slapstick humour to keep the entertainment factor alive.
None of this transfers well to the page. The result is an excess of exclamation marks and the use of words like “suddenly” that would be penalized if it were produced by native English speaking school students. Even allowing for the difficulties of producing graded readers, there is little excuse for this.
Ironically, however, three of the most successful “filmy” graded readers have all featured protagonists who have genuine problems with language. Rain Man (Fleischer/McGovern 1999), Forrest Gump (Escott 1996) and About a Boy (Hornby/Collins 2002) follow an autistic idiot savant; a man so naïve that he effectively an idiot, and a young teenager who is completely out of touch with his own peer group. Neither Raymond, nor Forrest nor Marcus has any linguistic facility. They are equally at a loss when faced with figurative language, metaphor or irony, and because they are so incapable of working out what is REALLY being said, they are excellent and sympathetic examples for L2 learners.
b. Classics
So far as “classic” literature is concerned, reference has already been made to the less than successful retelling of Little Women (McBeath 2004), but a recent Macmillan edition of Bleak House (Dickens/Tarner 2005) is almost equally unsatisfactory. In the latter case, the problem lies in attempting to reduce a work whose original is so densely packed with characters, and multilayered in plot. Something of the original is inevitably lost, as the reteller sacrifices detail in favour of narrative.
In one instance, however, I have used a graded reader that was almost an improvement on the original work. In 1999 I received a free copy of Washington Square (James/Rollason 1999) and in the years since then it received so much use that it eventually fell to pieces.
What is most interesting about Rollason’s retelling is the way in which it accentuates the ambiguity of the protagonists’ relationship. In the Henry James original, it soon becomes clear that Catherine’s father has serious grounds for his suspicions of Morris Townsend. His daughter is dull, plain and without any obvious attraction other than her inheritance. Morris Townsend is good looking, and desperately in need of money.
The Rollason retelling, however, softens this last factor, leaving open the question of whether Catherine only appears to be dull because she has no need to put on a display. Secure in her own wealth, she has no need to exercise the arts required to make a “good marriage” – i.e. catch a wealthy husband.
c. Non-Fiction.
The non-fiction category is the area least served by the graded reader, although it is interesting to note that among personnel from the Sultan’s Armed Forces, The Story of the Internet (Bryant 2000) and Management Gurus (Evans 2000) were almost as popular as Washington Square. These books work at the Intermediate (1700 word) and Upper Intermediate (2300 word) levels, and Management Gurus offers four fairly extensive biographies of leading managers. It also offers the irony that none of the people referred to had good interpersonal skills.
The Story of the Internet, by contrast, is a tour-de-force that could be read with profit by English native-speakers on Business Studies courses. It begins with the development of main-frame computers, and moves through Personal Computers to the development of dot com commerce, emphasizing, en route, the extent to which the IT revolution was driven by personal enthusiasts.
Goldman Sachs; The Culture of Success (Endlich; 2000), however, was less successful. Although still at the Intermediate level, the book simply introduced too many players. It would have been difficult for a native speaker to work out who was whom, particularly against a background of simplified high finance. Corporate banking is an area that really does not lend itself to simplification.
At a lower, Pre-Intermediate (1200 word) level, comes Titanic (Shipton 2001) which is a highly original blend of fact and fiction. This book devotes space to the making of James Cameron’s blockbuster film, before telling the story of the doomed liner in a mixture of straight prose and comic-strip illustration. To some extent, this text simplifies the reader’s task, but at the same time, its use of illustration and the appeal of the title encourage “reluctant readers” to give the book a try.
I would suggest that the last point is more important than many teachers might care to acknowledge, and it brings me back to the importance of encouraging learners to read.
“Reluctant” readers need to be coaxed along, and they certainly do not need the comprehension questions that appear at the end of so many graded readers. Maley (2008) cites evidence from Mason (2004; 2006) and Smith (2006) that shows that “adding questions, writing or other activities does nothing to enhance either comprehension or language acquisition” (P. 145). Such evidence is welcome, as it confirms what has always been my “gut reaction” to extensive reading. Native speakers read for a variety of reasons, but primarily they read literature – with a small “l” – to relax. Why should we demand a higher level of activity from L2 learners?
On this point, Sheu (2003) warns about the dangers of using extensive readers to support Krashen’s (1985) “i plus 1” theory. Sheu suggests that providing readers with “i minus 1” materials reduces their difficulty, but makes the learners more likely to read.
I would go further than that. There is no need for us to challenge our students every step of the way. Native speakers of ever written language often read well below their own competence. The western, the thriller, the romance, the entire output of the Mills and Boone publishing house are testaments to the desire to read for relaxation.
I see no difficulty in offering students “i minus 3” or “i minus 5” materials. The Long Road (Smith 2002) is an Easystart (200 word) reader that tells the story of Terry Fox. At 16 pages long, including illustrations, it could be read in ten minutes by a student at Intermediate level, but for all that, it works very well. If introduced to students who intend to attend, or participate in, the annual Terry Fox runs held in Oman and the UAE, it would have an impact far beyond its linguistic level.
Similarly, the Oxford University Press The Drive to Dubai (Till 2004) at 700 word level, and another Penguin Easystart, The White Oryx (Smith 2003) could both inspire Arab Gulf students through their local settings. The Drive to Dubai is a whodunit, while The White Oryx has an uncontentious ecological theme. Both books feature strong, resourceful female characters, and in both cases the good end happily and the bad, unhappily.
At a far higher (1600 word) level, the Macmillan Intermediate Level reader The Perfect Storm (Junger/Collins 2003/2005) is also very successful. Extensively illustrated, albeit in monochrome, this book is less a novel than a series of interlocking short stories, for the central character of the narrative is the storm itself.
I left RAFO Masirah before this novel was published in its new edition, but had I still been working there, I would have used it to supplement the helicopter Search and Rescue course, and would have recommended it to any of the RAFO personnel who actually came from Masirah. Anyone with a background in a fishing community would have empathized with the principal characters.
It is difficult to determine the extent to which a Book Box can actually influence individual students. Obviously, some are more enthusiastic readers than others.
At SAF School, a number of the boys exploited the resource offered by the Longman Book box when they had to choose a reader for English Speaking Board oral assessments. Theoretically, there was nothing to stop them all talking about the same book, but they were sufficiently shrewd to appreciate that offering a variety of texts would better hold the assessor’s attention. At least one former SAF School student maintained the habit of reading graded readers into his adult life. When I last heard of him, he was a Wing Commander in Administration.
At the Force Ordnance School, I had a junior officer literally RUN across a car park to tell me the denouement of The Ring (Smith 1992). Such overt enthusiasm and total engagement with the text is unusual, but it is infinitely gratifying when it occurs.
At the School of Armour, I taught one sergeant who was an inveterate borrower of books, and who bought graded readers for his own pleasure. He introduced me to the writing of Maeve Binchy, and was partly responsible for what has, to date, been my major endorsement of extensive reading.
For two years in succession (2000 and 2001) I was asked to organize transport and escort parties of Armour Brigade personnel to the Annual Muscat International Book Fair. This initiative came from the Armour Brigade personnel themselves. I went with them to offer advice, to act as a consultant, and to purchase books for myself. I did not organize their purchases. By that stage, the men concerned had become autonomous readers and could select titles for themselves.
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