HLT Magazine (March 2001) - Short Article 2

Humanising Language Teaching
Year 3; Issue 2; March 2001

Hyper-Active Students

by Dierk Andresen, Germany

Hypertext offers new possibilities for (online) learning. And for offline learning, too, as this exercise will try and demonstrate. It will allow students to

- clarify (both for themselves as well as to their teacher) their language learning needs
- think about the meaning of words in context and
- give their creativity and being-silly-ness a free run.

The classroom procedure is - at first - pretty straightforward:

Choose a short text. A long and complex sentence would already be enough, but a short passage of a non-fictional text would perhaps lend itself better to the various steps of this exercise.
Bring one copy of the text per student to class.
Let students read the text. Do not answer questions about vocabulary. Tell students, you will deal with that later.
Elicit a brief summary or classification of the text from students. (i.e.: news? scientific? literary? business? linguistics? etc.)
Discuss briefly the concept of Hyperlinks. Just to make sure all students understand the basic principle.
Ask students to underline three or four words or expressions in the text where a hyperlink either to a dictionary, a glossary, an encyclopedia, or a textbook would help them understand the text better and - perhaps - find related words, expressions or concepts that they would like to know more about.
Let students share in pairs or groups of up to four their choices. Now to the whackier part.
Ask students to underline individually four more words or phrases that should/could contain a hyperlink. This could still be a very easy task if the text is full of relevant (within the framework of the chosen topic) vocabulary. A beginner's text on chemical elements would lend itself to hyperlinking words and corresponding definitions on science websites.
Again let them share their choices, preferably in a different pairing/grouping.
Now ask them to come up with seven further ideas for hyperlinks. This might puzzle them at first. If they are totally stumped, give them a few examples. The text that serves as a model here, contains i.a. the words advertise, terrific, and crowds. Suggest that hyperlinking these words could, perhaps, get them to pages on the history of advertising, synonyms for terrific, or a list of events that are the biggest crowd pullers in various cultures. Then let them loose. Encourage them let their minds play and really ask for the impossible, i.e. "I never understand how this construction works and I want a link to a webpage that lists all my trouble spots and explains them clearly so that from then on I will never have any problems ever gain with these obnoxious phrases or constructions." Suggest, perhaps, that they could use the ambiguity of some of the words to come up with surprising links.
You might be running out of time here if you are working within the framework of a 45-minute-lesson, but make sure you get some feedback and possibly allow students to present their favourite "impossible" hyperlink.
Optional: if your students have access to the WWW either at home or at school let them try and put their links into practice and - by using search engines - try to find web sites that come close to their ideas. Advice: In choosing the text it will make sense to choose one that conatins a fair amount of idioms as these will contain words that are totally out of context with the topic of the text as such.

Here is an example of such a text with links for the first stage given:

Joe's Pizza

Imagine that your friend Joe decides to open a pizza business. Joe has managed to save a chunk of money over the years from his regular job, and now he wants to bite the bullet and say good-bye forerver to the stodgy corporate life he's been living. Joe rents some space, buys or leases equipment, comes up with a killer pizza recipe that even you think is fantastic, hires a few people to help out, and then a week after opening day, realizes that it just might take a while before the crowds start forming outside the door. He's getting some customers, but Joe has finally figured out that there's more to building this pizza business than simply having a great tasting pizza! For one thing, Joe needs to get word out to the public that his terrific pizza joint is now open for business. While you and all your friends have eaten there a few times already (in a gesture of moral support, but also because you really like his pizza), the fact is that your circle of friends isn't going to be able to drum up enough interest by word of mouth, even though you already know that Joe's is the best darned pizza place this side of town. Joe decides he needs to advertise in the city paper....

A whackyfied version could look like this:

Joe's Pizza

Here are two more texts. They demonstrate quite clearly, I hope, how the possibilities for placing "serious" links can vary, and how soon the necessity to become creative kicks in. Text 1 is taken from a textbook for German grammar school students - the beginning of a chapter on the British Empire. The British Empire was the largest colonoial empire in history. At the peak of colonization, at the beginning of the 20th century, it comprised nearly one fifth of the land surface and one quarter of the world's population. It has shaped the world of today, insofar as America and Australia have become white English-speaking continents, and large parts of Africa and Asia mirror a strong British impact in their culture and institutions.

There are very few words here that make the students leave the topic. Most nouns have something to do with the Empire. Having placed 15 different links practically none of the students had left the topic. Their explanations for their choice of links were all very straighforward. Perhaps I should have gone one step further and asked for another five links. Could there not be a link from "mirror" to the Daily Mirror? From "peak" to a site on the Himalayas? From "shaped" to geometry? From "quarter" to the coins of the world? To quarterbacks? To the Quartier Latin?

On the other end of the spectrum of suitability you would perhaps find a text like the following one from "A Celebration of American Family Folklore. Tales and Traditions from the Smithsonian Collection." by Steven J. Zeitlin, Amy J. Kotkin and Holly Cutting Baker, New York 1982.

Houdini

When I was young I bought my brother a book for his birthday, a biography of Houdini. He had barely unwrapped it when I grabbed it back from him and ran away and hid for the rest of the birthday party and read the book. It was a big joke that I had bought him a book which I had obviously wanted. So ever after that, anytime anyone gave a gift that was clearly something that the giver wanted more than the givee, it was called a Houdini.

Obviously, the first link would be Houdini, followed, perhaps, by biography. But then what? There's nothing that is clearly "linkworthy". This kind of text would be much more challenging. Perhaps even too much so. I think for trying out this activity one should look for a text that lies half way between the two examples given, i.e. at this length a text that provides five to six linkworthy words or phrases. ( Would it be too corny to introduce the word linkeme here, half-brother of phoneme, lexeme, and morpheme? Maybe yes, but I just couldn't resist.) More trying out needs to be done. Variations to this exercise can easily be devised.What, for example, would happen, if students were confronted with a surrealist text?

Variation 1: Provide any kind of text of about the length shown above. Set students the task of designing links for as many words as possible. The end result should be a collection of as much biographical information about the students themselves as possible. (Model: "When I read the word street it always reminds me of a street in..." -> link)

Variation 2: Same as above, but the link collection should relate to students' jobs, rather than lives. So this would be suitable for in-company training or, at least, adult students.

Variation 3: Depending on the kind of text students could work with a dictionary (monolingual or other) to look for meanings of the respective words that are clearly not related to the topic of the text and then think about surprise links.

Are you interested in how bizarre linking can get? Then take a look at this web page. It gives the details of a teacher training seminar. Boring until you check what lies beneath....

More of my ideas can be found in my notepad.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Mario Rinvolucri for enticing me into writing something for HLT. Thanks also to Google for putting highly suitable web pages at the tip of my mouse in split seconds.

Those of you who are interested in learning how ro search the WWW and can read German, can find useful tips here.