One of the challenges in
teaching, at least as far as I am concerned, is the difficulty in conveying my
enthusiasm, as an adult with more experience of the world, for ideas which are
perhaps not within my students’ grasp. But then again, as with everything in
this world, that’s what is worth fighting for: whatever eludes us.
My attitude could be
described as having my feet on the ground while my head is in the clouds! Most
of my students are children and teenagers who are obviously learning general
English in order to use it later in life as the situation may arise: graduate
studies in English, job requirement, travel, moving abroad.
I therefore feel that
there should be a strong practical core to the course which prepares students
for everyday encounters in English as well as understanding a range of texts
from different disciplines while at the same time they get a taste of
literature and poetry. The latter will allow them to develop their imagination
and creativity – essential tools in learning anything really.
As I have pointed out in a
previous post, I quite like working on themes whenever this is possible. So, this
time it was the theme of “lowly” grass.
It all started with the Great Dust Storm (Woodie Guthrie) which led to a
discussion of the Dust Bowl in the
1930s and the erosion of the soil in many states across America.
I then thought that I needed
some scientific back-up for what was introduced as a creative activity which
would elicit descriptive language by asking the students to explain what is
happening in the muted video of the song frame by frame.
This particular group of
students are well on their way to the Cambridge Proficiency exam so I picked
out a gapped text in the Cambridge Advanced English test book (volume 1)
published by Cambridge University Press. The text is entitled The Story of Grass and it is a review
of Graham Harvey’s The Forgiveness of
Nature: The Story of Grass by John Carey. The students get a rough idea
about the importance of grass and its gradual but irreversible destruction by
intensive farming and the use of chemical fertilisers to maintain yields in
cereal monocultures. At the same time, they improve their understanding of coherence and cohesion, which constitute
a big stumbling block as their
understanding of these issues in their mother tongue is poor.
For those interested, the gapped text can be found here:
But where would grass be
without Emily Dickinson’s exaltation
of it in her poem The Grass Has so Little to Do. After my students had been filled in on the science of grass and
its benefits for the environment, they were entitled to some fun. Therefore, I
gave them the poem with a glossary in the form of example sentences and asked
them to answer some questions I prepared. This was set as homework so that the
students could have more time to brood over the poem. The questions ensure a
more accurate understanding than a cursory reading and sensitise the students
to the figurative use of language. Here is the poem and the questions:
Finally, I encouraged my
students to listen to the poem being recited online. I was pleasantly surprised
to find that there were several readings of the poem. Here is a link directing
to one of them:
I do hope I have made the
case for arts and science working together in perfect harmony to hone
linguistic ability.
