Easy Does It: VOA Learning English – A Multimedia Online Power Tool

Bill Templer, Bulgaria

Bill Templer is a Chicago-born educator with research interests in English as a lingua franca, critical pedagogy, socialist/Marxist transformative policy for education, and Extensive Reading methodologies, and a widely published translator from German. Bill has taught in the U.S., Ireland, Germany, Israel/Palestine, Austria, Bulgaria, Iran, Nepal, Thailand, Laos and Malaysia. He serves on the staff of the IATEFL SIG Global Issues: (http://gisig.iatefl.org/about-us). He is Editor (Eastern Europe) at the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (www.jceps.com), chief translator for the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture, University of Leipzig (www.dubnow.de), and is currently based as an independent researcher in Shumen, Bulgaria. E-mail: templerbill@gmail.com

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Introduction
Some key aspects of Special English
Toward a target “plateau level”
Improving weak performance, low motivation
Countering the “Matthew Effect” in EFL
Meaning in the service of power?
One analogue: The Times in Plain English
Toward a more ‘critical’ version of easier English?
People’s library of comprehensible input
Some possible VOA Learning English research suggestions
References

Introduction

There is a cost-free multimedia power tool for reading and listening that few teachers or English language learners (ELLs) seem to be aware of: VOA Learning English – a large online learning site with numerous texts and exercises, many with MP3 audio, and an archive of ‘simpler’ high-quality texts at roughly 1,500 headwords ( http://learningenglish.voanews.com), lower-to-mid B1 level. It is the largest single ‘easier’ American English resource online, all written/spoken by experienced journalists working with the Voice of America. The site was until recently called VOA Special English (SE), but has been revamped into a Learning English site still based on SE, but now with much more scaffolding for learning American English. The video ‘New Navigation!’ at the home site explains the recent changes and is a good introduction to the new site. The SE archive, accessible by simple search, contains well over 7,000 texts, growing at two texts per day. All texts are short, ca. 400-1,300 words; most with MP3 for listening + download. Along with 100s of videos, all with captions. For example, a search for ‘Education Report’ yields 563 texts (http://goo.gl/6U7nD3 ), going back more than 11 years. The search for the feature ‘Science in the News’ yields 649 articles (with some overlap) over the past decade (http://goo.gl/nKjIVv), all in Special English. TALK2US taps learners’ views on some controversial topic, such as violence against women (http://goo.gl/zKbOjX). The materials in Special English have been grouped under two levels, with texts in Level 2 followed by slightly more advanced explanations of vocabulary and exercises. But both levels remain anchored in SE.

This ‘graded level’ site is superb for encouraging Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) in Krashen’s (1997; 2003; 2004a; Krashen & Williams, 2012) sense, both outside the classroom in autonomous study and to supplement the in-class syllabus. It is “comprehensible input” B1-level par excellence. As Special English Chief Shelley Gollust has commented: “It‘s almost like Hemingway. You can write something easy and direct, and it‘s more powerful that way” (quoted in Goodman, 2007).

ELLs can click on any word and find the definition in the Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary. The SE Wordbook (1,510 words) is downloadable (http://goo.gl/bnyxB), and also available mobile as an apps for iPhone (http://goo.gl/XtsD4). SE can be integrated into classroom work in many imaginative ways. Learners can post their own stories about themselves: (http://goo.gl/iZvB5), and respond to feature articles on article forums (http://goo.gl/t1W8T). A special section, “The Classroom,” provides a broad range of activities, including interactive online tools (http://goo.gl/1WqRA), games here: (http://goo.gl/cgNbk). SE is used as a teaching tool in Thailand (http://goo.gl/b8Nai), and is quite popular in China and Vietnam, but is still relatively unknown in many countries. Moreover, teachers can do empirical action research on how their students respond, work with & learn from Special English texts, including case studies (Stake, 2006) -- concrete classroom research of high priority (Templer, 2008a, 2008b, 2009, 2011, 2012). One example is recent research from China on using SE even with advanced learners (Yao & Zuo, 2009, p. 29) to improve their productive skills:

The Special English program exposes learners to a large amount of comprehensible input using high frequency words. The repeated use of these words and their collocations in different contexts makes it easier for students to learn essential vocabulary. Special English also offers instructional opportunities for extensive speaking and writing [and] arouses the learners’ enthusiasm for English learning with its interesting, informative, and detailed reports. [It] thus provides learners with what they actually need in terms of vocabulary for authentic communication, which is in stark contrast to the topics in their textbooks.

Learning English news and features in Special English are also available on shortwave radio, so students with a good radio can access SE without a computer (http://goo.gl/OEZ5O). It has 30 minutes of new programming every day, online plus shortwave, including a major news story (‘As It Is’), and two feature programs on 14 ‘Learning English Shows.’ Spoken at a rate of ca. 105 words per minute (ca. 30% slower than ‘normal’ reporting or talking speed), this is about 3,150 words input for listening per day = ca. 22,000 words per week = 1 million+ words a year. Imagine your students developing a web-based input of readily comprehensible English totaling ca. 1 million words a year. Arguably, this would work wonders for many average non-privileged learners anywhere. Special English is part of the broader program of aids for learning American English developed by the U.S. government, and highlighted at the new site AE/American English, a major online resource center well worth a visit (http://goo.gl/OEZ5O http://americanenglish.state.gov).

Some key aspects of Special English

• SE is based on a 1,500-word core ‘high-frequency’ vocabulary, plus 3-4% of more specialized vocabulary, depending on the subject.
• It recycles high-frequency vocabulary and syntax, important for all learners, with systematic repetition of basic lexis and structures.
• SE averages 13 words per sentence. Its grammar, though natural, is simpler – generally one proposition (idea) per sentence.
• Every day, MP3 broadcasts provide 10 minutes of news (‘As It Is’), plus two feature articles (20 minutes), grouped under 14 ‘topic areas,’ including agriculture, science, entertainment, development, health, education, exploration, ‘people in America,’ short fiction, ‘words and their stories.’ You and students can listen here (http://goo.gl/sTU4P). On weekends, ‘As It Is’ explores art and culture around the world
• This builds a wide window onto intercultural awareness. Articles have high interest value, and often deal with current topics of global significance. The genre is multimodal, combining text, image and sound (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001), where text on-screen can reinforce aural input and vice versa.
• All this material is archived online since 2001. There are some 720 feature articles per year, and over 7,000 articles in the Learning English archive at this point, well over 3.5 million words, adding 14 articles per week, an A-1 resource for Free Voluntary Reading and “comprehensible input” in large self-selected quantity (Krashen, 1997; 2003, p. 5).
• It is an excellent ‘narrow reading’ resource in Krashen’s sense (2004b; 2007), where students can self-select readings to focus on a topic of interest. On narrow reading/listening, see also Harumi & Ssali (2009). The archive can be easily searched for virtually any topic. For example, the search ‘Bob Dylan’ yields 1,276 matches (http://goo.gl/ I8jIh7).
• Music in particular is one focus most ELLs have a strong attraction for. Here an SE feature article on Michael Jackson: (http://goo.gl/h8x23), another on Billie Holiday (http://goo.gl/HpSuk) and another on the blues (http://goo.gl/hkrG7http://goo.gl/hkrG7), this on rock n’ roll (http://goo.gl/hkrG7). ‘Music’ searched on the SE archive yields 4,283 matches (http://goo.gl/JTEZEs), ‘jazz’ generates 361 matches (http://goo.gl/Ra59p3).
• A library of 100s of videos in SE is now available (http://goo.gl/ukFS). Here one on International Women’s Day: (http://bit.ly/HupGun), another about the job market: (http://goo.gl/WbU5w). These are all captioned videos, students can read what they hear.
• The online archive has over 100 American stories in simpler English, graded at 1,500 headwords. Here Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” (http://goo.gl/YPv2UW). You can introduce ELLs to simpler versions of classic stories; they can discuss in groups, perform as drama, draw collaborative comics about. This is a ‘graded’ vestibule to American short fiction. Searching ‘American stories’ generates 173 matches (http://goo.gl/dZRlcv).
• With texts on a broad range of topics, SE is a kind of ‘English for Academic Purposes Lite.’ Such an EAP Lite/ESP Lite needs experimentation & research, such as preparation for tests like IELTS and building proficiency in general academic English. Syahro (2009) examined student preparation for IELTS using Special English, with very positive results.
• Intriguingly, Reilly (2012, p. 9) stresses the idea of including materials on social issues in the reading of ‘Generation Y’ students of today, texts about climate change, poverty, women’s issues, politics – since “Gen Y seeks a purpose and a passion.” SE has many such texts, multimodal. We can experiment in line with Reilly’s suggestions for ‘Gen Y' pedagogies, such as this recent SE text on ‘emerging adulthood’ (http://goo.gl/2QNojn).

Toward a target “plateau level”

Special English, which can be used as an EAP Lite, as graded reading for short fiction, and most certainly for the needs of everyday communication, can be mastered far more easily than climbing the virtual “Everest” of standard “complete” English. This requires massive recycling and over-learning of basic lexis and syntax at this level, promoting a kind of “plain talk fluency” and greater learner confidence (Templer, 2009). This can be done utilizing the SE model, even for speaking and writing, a reasonable target “plateau level” for the multitude of learners today. So one option is to bring learners to this level and let them deepen their knowledge by regular reading and listening on their own – in effect, becoming highly fluent (Nation, 2001; Yao & Zuo, 2009) in this plainer form of English, and reading in it regularly for pleasure and information. The lower-intermediate level of SE texts is a workable target level – enough for most ELLs -- from which some can & will move on to autonomous, self-directed learning. Krashen (2003, p. 4) has emphasized: “All we need do in language pedagogy is to help students reach the intermediate level, defined as the level at which students have acquired enough of the language to continue to acquire on their own. In other words, they can then obtain comprehensible input outside the language classroom.” As Michael West observed (1955, p. 70): “At 1,700 words one can tell any strong plot, keeping much of the original style. A vocabulary of 2,000 words is good enough for anything, and more than one needs for most things.” Eldridge & Neufeld (2009), based on research with learners in Northern Cyprus, posit the critical lexical threshold at 1,650 word families. For many average ELLs from non-privileged backgrounds and Long-Term ELLs (Krashen & Williams, 2012), that is still a challenging but attainable -- and sustainable – target.

Improving weak performance, low motivation

A significant proportion of ELLs, especially those “in difficult circumstances” (Maley, 2001) – non-privileged, with few books at home, low-income background, low motivation -- often fail to move beyond a mid-elementary/false beginner level. Data from the EU suggests that over 50 percent of the population in a number of EU countries can barely communicate in English, despite years of study in school (Lehner, 2009). An EFL teacher from Serbia notes:

I’ve mentioned several times how bad language education (in primary and high schools, but often the faculties too) in Serbia is, how after 10 years of second language study the vast majority of students, after finishing high-school, gets no further than a set of several basic sentences and a mediocre vocabulary which they can’t put to any real use (http://goo.gl/B3Wxi).

This is a pedagogical reality which most teachers at the grassroots in countries from Thailand to Bulgaria are well aware of. There are a multitude of learners who have had 1,100+ hours of EFL instruction in Bulgaria where I am based, yet remain poor in reading and production skills. Moreover, they do not read much in any language, and may be weak in general literacy (http://goo.gl/PJoOW). Using texts written in SE and aiming at this realistic “plateau level” -- where students even after leaving school can continue to read and listen, and develop active skills speaking and writing along the lines of SE -- may help to counter this lack of motivation and performance that frustrates and defeats so many ELLs. SE could be taught as a target goal for acquirers to “overlearn” lexis and syntax, gaining ever greater familiarity, competence and fluency in Nation’s (2001) classic sense where “100% of the vocabulary used must already be known by the learners” -- at this crucial and highly ‘sustainable’ plateau level. It is also easier for teachers to fully master and teach. As Yao & Zuo (2009, p. 31) conclude:

After two months of using the VOA Special English reports as a means to focus on high frequency words and collocations, our students began to see progress in their speaking and writing. The progress in turn built up their confidence and increased their engagement with these activities; moreover, the learning habits they acquired now help them become more independent, responsible, and confident language learners who will continue to pursue better proficiency in English beyond the course.

Countering the “Matthew Effect” in EFL

On an analogous note of “social class in class,” Lamb (2011) discusses the impact in provincial Sumatra in Indonesia of a “Matthew Effect” in which the social, economic, and cultural capital provided by home background and early education experiences enables some learners to benefit more from English language education at school as well as to “exploit opportunities to learn the language outside school” (p. 201), leading to a “massive competitive gain” in English proficiency over working-class children from more modest socioeconomic backgrounds. In turn, this can generate a widening economic and cultural class divide over the long term. As it says in Matthew 13:12: “Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” Rigney (2012) argues that the Matthew Effect -- advantage begetting further advantage -- is evident in schooling across the planet (http://goo.gl/ul7Y1). Wherever you may be teaching, a Matthew Effect is probably self-evident in most local schools. Study after study shows that performance on many tests is related to the SES (socioeconomic status) of the learner’s family, i.e. social class. Working systematically with SE may be one pathway to countering this effect and creating greater learning equity, restoring learner confidence and self-esteem. Only experimentation and research will tell. There is a widening chasm between small islands of privileged middle-class learners of EFL, especially across the developing world, the EFL haves – and the masses of working-class learners within the planet’s social majorities, the EFL have-nots. Money talks. Money talks English, and generates vast topographies of discourse inequity that we need to overcome (Templer, 2012b). As Krashen has argued: “The cure for English fever is a program in English that does not threaten first language development, and that is relatively easy to do, one that does not require the advantages of being upper middle class” (2003, p. 9).

Meaning in the service of power?

Generally, SE materials do not offer a critical view of many aspects of American life and society. The Voice of America is under the U.S. Dept. of State. In the past, SE served aims bound up with the Cold War. Yet today the site is not a crude propaganda tool (Templer, 2008b; 2009). Of course, it is tilted toward a certain ‘bourgeois democratic’ view of the current world system and selective imaging of America and the West, but so are all the corporate mainstream media in the U.S. with their manipulation strategies (http://goo.gl/Wkxty). Certainly, SE needs to be read critically, and students can be taught through critical discourse analysis to do that. Yet its relative balance and approach in feature stories can appeal to a broad segment of ELLs. Some Special English stories highlight ‘progressive’ Americans. For example, a biography featured the radical feminist and political radical Margaret Sanger (http://goo.gl/jyGOh). A biography of leftwing socialist singer Woody Guthrie highlighted his social activism (http://goo.gl/xMsDSS) in the U.S., just listen! Another on Woody (http://goo.gl/Gzhz3p). Radical labor songs are highlighted in this recent article (http://goo.gl/Rh0PMm). A feature on the African-American Chicago-based poet Gwendolyn Brooks (http://goo.gl/X4JOP) stressed her work as a lyrical chronicler of African-American working class life. Singer Paul Robeson, one of the most radical African-American artists and activists of his era, was also featured (http://goo.gl/kRDP9).

One analogue: The Times in Plain English

The New York Times has launched a new online paper, The Times in Plain English ( http://bit.ly/HELhAb). It is simpler English, although somewhat above the 1,500 headword level, with short articles rewritten from the NY Times, Wall Street Journal and other U.S. papers, downshifted to a lower-intermediate B1 level. This can be used like VOA Special English for cost-free recreational reading at easier levels. Most articles deal with current issues, and ELLs can also find the original article and compare the two.

Toward a more ‘critical’ version of easier English?

It would be desirable to have a left-political source online looking at global issues, written in an easier ‘downshifted’ mode akin to VOA Special English. A laudable paradigm is Global Issues for Learners of English, a spin-off website based on the periodical New Internationalist in the United Kingdom. This website, still accessible (http://goo.gl/LUzjZ), operated from 1997 to 2002, and has been revived as NI Easier English Wiki (http://eewiki.newint.org) since July/August 2012, now covering 13 issues in Easier English, with links to the original articles. The “Story of Jeans,” an article series in easier English critical of international garment sweatshop manufacture, is one prototype of their earlier work (http://goo.gl/hGRsD). Here a recent piece on “Palestine and the occupiers” from the new Easier English Wiki (http://goo.gl/Sv41W), another on youth and idealism today (http://goo.gl/fl5Fo); an issue of NI 2012 looks at “how co-operatives can save the planet” (http://goo.gl/IVvV0H ). More advanced ELLs can explore progressive alternative media sites stateside like Countercurrents ( www.countercurrents.org), mrzine (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org). Workers World ( www.workers.org) or the SPUSA (http://socialistparty-usa.net), a growing political party.

People’s library of comprehensible input

One larger project we would like to see launched is to encourage a new series of books written in SE on a range of topics, including anthologies of texts for academic and scientific subjects, to augment comprehensible input at this level. The large array of books written in BASIC ENGLISH (Templer, 2008b, 2009; 2012a, 2012b) during the 1930s & ‘40s on topics in science, architecture, philosophy and many other fields by associates of Charles K. Ogden and Ivor Richards are a paradigm for a kind of “people’s library” in easier English, best kept outside the profit-oriented agendas of corporate publishers. They could be made available under a CC copyright (http://creativecommons.org). For BASIC ENGLISH, see a multitude of excellent books at (http://goo.gl/42DC7) and (http://goo.gl/OJ5UY).

Some possible VOA Learning English research suggestions

Special English remains a kind of “Cinderella” in ELT research. Over a decade ago, Lewis (1999, p. 1) noted: “Voice of America's Special English program is arguably the most unique and successful program in the history of international broadcasting by the United States, and yet hardly anyone in this country ever has heard of it.” In part, this is because SE was, since its inception in 1959 until the late 1990s, available only on shortwave outside the U.S., and written texts were rare. All that has changed over the past cybernetic decade. Partially, sparse research may be due to another factor: Special English, launched in 1959, was seen as a tool in the Cold War for the first three decades of its existence (Templer, 2008a). All that too is transformed. Moreover, in the past 18 months, the SE site has been significantly upgraded & diversified. Teachers can do action research -- and case studies in particular (Stake, 2006) -- on a broad range of questions (below just a few), and disseminate their findings among colleagues, at conferences and in print:

• Can SE be used as a versatile, effective platform for EAP/ESP Lite in a variety of fields and subjects? In many countries, CLIL is proving far too demanding for average non-privileged learners in a number of teaching ecologies (http://goo.gl/iioqC). The Matthew Effect probably shapes success with CLIL everywhere. Experimentation with a more ‘downsized’ mode of academic English is clearly needed for most ordinary ELLs. Can SE be utilized for a plainer and more comprehensible CLIL, along the lines of Krashen’s (2003, p. 5; 1997, pp. 37-38) notions of “sheltered subject matter teaching”?
• Can students learn to work daily with SE in the 30-minute MP3 broadcast?
• Can SE be used even with more advanced ELLs to improve their production, as researched in China (Yao & Zuo, 2009, and as a source of ‘easier’ recreational self-selected reading, where advanced students read for pleasure in this easier lect?
• Perhaps SE can also help cure the ‘Long-Term ELL syndrome,’ as did Free Voluntary Reading in the case of Mexican immigrant and now celebrated novelist Reyna Grande (Krashen & Williams, 2012; Grande, 2012, pp. 240-44). Research needed.
• Can it become for many more ordinary learners an actual productive skills level for a plainer, simpler spoken and written English, and for reading extensively at that “plateau” level as the prime aim of an EFL syllabus, building genuine fluency (Nation, 2001) at that sustained simpler level -- instead of standard English and the complexities of EAP?
• Special English as a literacy motivator: do ordinary learners at A2/B1 levels become more motivated to read in English when working with SE, and more confident, as suggested by Yao & Zuo’s action research (2009)? Case studies needed.
• Utilizing an MP3 audio option with written text, do students retain lexis and structures better through this multimodal combination? How do they respond to the slower speed (105 wpm)?
• Can SE texts on American life and society – a kind of “American mosaic” -- provide a useful introduction to the U.S., informative albeit not critical? Can they be worked into study projects, cross-curricular projects? Case studies recommended.
• Can SE be used to enhance Free Voluntary Surfing (FVS) on the Internet, and for ‘narrow reading’ online? As Krashen (2007, p. 7) notes: “The internet provides us with a unique opportunity to test the effects of narrow reading on oneself without expending a lot of effort in finding relevant and related reading material.”
• How do students respond to SE captioned videos, integrated into a syllabus or as free voluntary web-surfing and VOA Learning English browsing (Krashen, 2007)?
• Exploratory research in SE Asia indicates that reading skills for IELTS exam preparation can be significantly enhanced working with SE texts (Syahro, 2009), and listening skills improved (Sikkhagit, 2007). Is listening at 105 wpm really effective? Studies are needed.
• How does SE listening comprehension compare with listening on a comparable Web-based medium like Jeff McQuillan’s more difficult eslpod (www.eslpod.com)?
• The archive of American stories is an excellent source. How do teachers/students use it?
• Is SE especially effective for approaches in Extensive Listening (Waring, 2003, 2008) and Extensive Reading ( www.robwaring.org/er)? Waring (2008) explicitly mentions using Special English as a resource.
• Is SE a pathway for some students to regular VOA news & features in standard English ( www.voanews.com)? Case studies would be useful.
• A mini-research unit for ‘Simplified Global Englishes’ should be established to look at VOA Special English and other ‘downshifted’ modes empirically, such as Jean-Paul Nerrière’s GLOBISH ( www.globish.com), Joachim Grzega’s BASIC GLOBAL ENGLISH (http://basicglobalenglish.com), Ogden/Richards BASIC and aspects of PLAIN ENGLISH (http://goo.gl/Xc9yo). No such unit exists (Templer, 2008b, 2009, 2011, 2012a) within English as a Lingua Franca research (http://goo.gl/imMOc).

Experimentation with and research on this Web-based tool are much needed. Privileged ELLs can climb to whatever levels of upscale proficiency they aspire to. The imperative challenge for us as a profession is how to better address the authentic literacy needs of the majority, with advocacy for an international people’s lingua franca, in the name of a TESOL of equity and solidarity for the 21st century. Special English can be a vital instrumental part of that.

References

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(N.B.: all URLS above accessed 16 September 2013). An earlier version of this article appeared in BETA Newsletter (Bulgaria), Nov.-Dec. 2012.

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