Despite the early part of life is like a bitter lemon, I turned the bitter and sour lemon to a sweet honeymelon with my magical power. With the influence by Miss Honey, I chose to take up a career as a teacher because I would like to show children that grown-ups are not monsters.
General functions and value of language arts activities
Undoubtedly, many adolescent students are often uninterested in anything literary or cultural, so many of them do not have a habit of reading at home. Therefore, it is important to stimulate their interest in literature by using various types of language arts activity. In this part, I will discuss the functions and values of language arts activities in general. More concrete examples of using “Matilda” in a language classroom will be followed in next part.
There are several functions of language arts activities. First of all, an interesting and exciting activity can arouse students’ interest in literature and motivate them to develop a habit of reading. They will find reading no longer boring, but being fun and enjoyable. Secondly, students may be allowed to access to the culture of English when they read a poem, story or drama. Moreover, some activities like spotting adjectives describing a specific character may expand students’ language awareness and stimulus language acquisition. As some languages used in literature may consist of more than one meanings, different students may have different interpretation on them. By studying these ambiguities, students’ interpretative abilities will be developed.
In addition, some language arts activities, e.g. writing a personal reflection on a story written and verse speaking, encourage students to express their personal opinions and feeling. As most language arts activities require students’ imagination and therefore, their creativity will be stimulated. Lastly, the most important value of literature and language arts activity is that the language used is not simplified for second language learners and highly “connotative” (Murphy: 1997). Therefore, it serves a very good way of exposing students to authentic language.
Suggested Activities for teaching the story “Matilda”
In this part, I will suggest four activities which can be used in teaching the story “Matilda” in the ESL classrooms, especially for students in F.1-2. Each activity focuses on one of the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Rationales for choosing each activity will be also included.
- Film Viewing—“Sounds Interesting” (Listening)
In this activity, teacher shows the movie “Matilda” which was based on the book written by Ronld Dahl. Instead of adopting a traditional approach in which students sit in front of the television and watch the movie for several lessons, teacher may apply various techniques to catch students’ attention and facilitates their understanding of the story. For example, in the activity “Sounds Interesting”, only sound of the movie is provided while the vision is off. The video sequence chosen can be dialogues between Matilda and her father, e.g. When Mr. Wormwood became angry as Matilda read a book and then he ripped the pages out of the book in handfuls and threw them in rubbish bin. Teacher may ask students to speculate on the situation from the conversation between the characters, narrative description and background sounds. Then, students may discuss their ideas with their peers. Finally, teacher shows the scene entirely and discusses the differences between students’ prediction and the actual situation.
The underlying principle of the activity “Sounds interesting” is to provide students with authentic spoken language which is hardly found in Hong Kong context. Usually, the spoken language listened by students have been distorted, e.g. slower pace, use of simpler words instead of colloquial expressions etc. Therefore, the aim of this activity is to sharpen students’ listening skills. Moreover, listening to voices without a visual reference can provide deeper insights into the characters or circumstances that a viewer who “sees” sometimes misses. (Cooper, Lavery & Rinvolucri: 1991)
- Improvisation (Speaking)
Improvisation involves spontaneous and unrehearsed verbal and non-verbal response. (Mahoney: 1997) Teacher can divide students into groups. Each group is given a situation and each member takes on one character from the story. If possible, the scene given to each group is different so that each group can act out their section for the rest of the class. (Wheeler: 1997) Furthermore, the scene chosen should involve more character so that more students can participate. After a few minutes preparation, or even instantly, students have to “get into role”. In their performance, students should pay attention to the words used, their actions, gestures and facial expressions because all these contribute a lot to their success.
The rationale for improvisation is that it provides a close approximation of real life communication. It also offers one of the few chances we have in the classroom to explore implied, as well as overt meaning. (Mahoney: 1997) In Hong Kong, students used to use English in a controlled and familiar way, such as standing up to answer a pre-prepared question in a textbook. Improvisation provides them an opportunity to response spontaneous, linguistic or non-linguistic, which is very common in real communication. In addition, as the language is not scripted in any way, students have to rely on their knowledge of the events and relationships between characters in their performance.
- Studying Characters (Reading)
Chapters 7 and 8 of the book “Matilda” contain lots of description on Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull. Teacher can ask students to read the chapters and underline the phrases describing Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull. A worksheet (in appendix P.11-13) will then be distributed to students. In the worksheet, students are asked to fill in the boxes describing Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull. For Miss Honey, the focus will be on her physical outlook Students have to fill in the boxes of “age”, “face”, “eyes”, “hair” and “body”. The description of Miss Trunchbull is more detailed. In the worksheet, students have to fill in the boxes of
”character”, “sounds”, “moves”, “face”, and “figure” and “clothing”.
In the second part of the worksheet, students are asked to draw two pictures of Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull. For Miss Trunchbull one, several labels which describe her cloths are provided. Students are expected to cut and stick these labels on the picture of Miss Trunchbull.
The purpose of this activity is to train up students’ reading skills, especially searching specific information from a text. They have to identify which information is useful, which is not. They also learn different adjective and phrases to describe various aspects of a person, e.g. hair, eyes, face, body shape, clothing etc. Moreover, the drawing tasks involve students’ imagination and creativity.
- Creative Writing
In this task, students are asked to imagine they are inspectors from the government. They have just visited Crunchem Hall Primary School and now they have to write a report on it. The report format (in appendix P. 14) will be provided to students so that they have more guidance. The report should include their observation in schools, e.g. students’ behaviours, staff’s manners, how teachers taught different subjects, general impression of the school and their comments on the school etc. Some of their ideas may come from the storybook; some may come from students’ imagination. Pair-work is preferable in this task so that students can share and exchange ideas with each other. When all the students finish their work, teachers may collect all their writing and bind them into a booklet and then distribute to students.
The underlying principle of this task is Language Experience Approach (LEA). In this approach, learners create their own reading materials on the basis of the experiences they have and expressed through the language they possess. As in this task, students adopt information from the story and their own experiences in school to write the report. They also have to negotiate and construct the meaning with their groupmates in the task. In short, students are actively involved in the process. Publication of students’ writing has an absolutely high value. Children’s excitement and delight are measureless when they hold their books in their hands and read their friends’ and their own writing in print. (Armour: 1994)
Conclusion
In this essay, I have explored the values of adolescent literature and language arts activities in teaching English as a second language. Its authentic features not only motivate students in learning English, but also make the learning process more enjoyable. Students are also encouraged to express their personal feelings and emotions which fit in with the experimental dimension of the Target Oriented Curriculum.
As Hong Kong education system has always been criticized as teacher-centered, textbook-based and examination-driven, the implementation of literature in language classroom can make language teaching more student-centered, skilled-based and capacity building.
Reference
Armour, M. W. (1994). Poetry, the magic language: children learn to read and write it. Englewood: Teacher Ideas Press
Cooper, R., Lavery, M & Rinvolucri, M., (1991). Video. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mahoney, D. (1997) Drama in the classroom. In P. Falvey & P. Kennedy, (eds.), Learning language through literature: a source book for teachers of English in Hong Kong (pp. 117-133). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Murphy, M, (1997) Making textbook language more literary. In P. Falvey & P. Kennedy, (eds.), Learning language through literature: a source book for teachers of English in Hong Kong (pp. 85-92). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Wheeler, J. M. (1997). The role of literature in language classroom. In Mok, A (1997) (ed.) English language enrichment programme resource book. (pp. 9-20) Hong Kong: INSTEP
Appendix I
Summary of the story “Matilda”
Matilda is an exceptionally bright young girl with insatiable appetite for books and reading. However, her parents Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood think that she is just a nuisance. They spend most of their time on watching television and making money by cheating people. Matilda decides to punish them with various tricks. She soon discovers that she has supernatural powers which are not only going prove to be useful at home but also at Crunchem Hall which is ruthlessly ruled by principal Agatha Trunchbull, a hulking woman as awful as her name.
Matilda's fortune turns when her first grade teacher Miss Honey begins to believe in her extraordinary powers. By using her supernatural powers, she can make troubles for the monstrous grown-ups in her life. Finally, her unusual powers free Matilda from her family and the oppressed people in her world.