RESEARCH PROJECT
USING CROSS-CULTURALISM
IN EFL LITERTURE-BASED CLASSES
AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL
by HIEN THI MINH DINH
Part One
INTRODUCTION
1. RATIONALE:
+ Global interaction has intensified so dramatically that learners
cannot isolate themselves from the world community
+ Cross-culturalist teaching finds the cultures in different
learners and the learners in different cultures
+ CC provides learners with cross-cultural communication
concepts and issues that might help them overcome cultural
shocks and bridge the gap between learners from different
cultures
2. FOCUS OF THE STUDY:
+ To implement cross-culturalism in the teaching of literature for
language students at the university level
3. AIMS OF THE STUDY:
• To develop a more thoughtful and principled theory based on
the foundation of reader- response criticism and crossculturalism
• To portrait the real picture of teaching and learning literature
in educational settings
• To enhance the quality of teaching literature at the university
level
• To encourage lifelong reading of works of art
• To stimulate more advance learning
• To stimulate personal growth across culture
4. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:
For teachers:
• To enhance language teachers’ teaching skills
• To provide them with teaching techniques and text-attack skills
• To make them aware of cultural aspects in literary texts
• To provide them with teaching strategies for solving cultural
problems
For students:
• To improve students’ interpretation and their reaction to
literary texts
• To enhance students’ interest in learning literature
• To make students aware of the cultural aspects in literary texts
5. JUSTIFICATION:
• Literature is one of the most obvious and valuable means of
attaining cultural insights.
• Students can benefit from literatures in many ways.
6. RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
• “What contributions can reader-response criticism and crossculturalism make to the teaching of literature?”
• “How should cross-culturalism be made use of in teaching
American contemporary literature at the university level?”
7. SETTING OF THE STUDY:
• The English Department of the College of Foreign Languages
of Danang University in Vietnam
• The English Department of the School of Social Sciences and
Humanities of Stanford University in the U.S.A.
Part Two
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
and
METHODOLOGY
LITERATURE REVIEW
_ Main focuses of reader-response criticism (Beach, 1993):
• roles
• purposes
• text types
• contexts
_ Orientations of reader-response criticism (RRC)
• knowledgeable perspective
• experiential perspective
• psychological perspective
• sociological perspective
• cultural perspective
Textual
Reader’s knowledge
of convention
Experiential
Reader’s engagement or
experience
Context
Reader
Social
Reader’s social role
and perceptions of
the social context
Psychological
Reader’s cognitive or
subconscious processes
Text
Cultural
Reader’s cultural role,
attitudes, contexts
Source: Five perspectives representing different lenses that illuminate
particular aspects of the reader / text / context transaction
(Beach, 1993: 8)
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
I. Linguistic Foundation:
1. Reader-response criticism (RRC)
a. The role of reader in RRT
b. The role of text in RRT
c. The role of teacher in RRT
2. RRC and the teaching of literature
3. Cross-Culturalism (CC)
II. Methodological Foundation:
1. Content-based instructions (CBI) and second language
acquisition (SLA)
2. Literature in communicative language teaching (CLT)
a. The top-down and bottom-up approaches
b. Theory of interactional view
c. Process writing
III. Educational Foundation:
1. CC and Whole Language
2. CC and the Affective Domain in SLT/FLT
3. CC and the Development of Academic in SLT/FLT
4. Prior knowledge in the Teaching and Learning of Literature
METHODOLOGY
I. Research questions:
• “What contributions can cross-culturalism make to the teaching
of literature?”
• “How should cross-culturalism be made use of in teaching
literature at the university level?”
II. Data processing and data analyzing:
Classroom observations:
_ Definition of unit act: The smallest discriminable segment of
communication that can be categorized confidently (Bales, cited in
Asher and Simpson, Vol. 1: 1709)
_ Explicit Responses (ExRs): Four patterns of transaction
Explicit Responses (ExRs)
Four patterns of transaction:
Total = (Rs in all 5 aspects)/2
a: if responses in each aspect > T
b: if responses in each aspect = T
c: if responses in each aspect < T
Explicit Responses (ExRs)
Four levels of transaction:
Total = (all paragraphs written in each 5 aspect)/2
a: if the total number of the written paragraphs in each
aspect > T
b: if the total number of the written paragraphs in each
aspect = T
c: if the total number of the written paragraphs in each
aspect < T
Part Three
RESULTS
80
70
60
a
b
c
0
50
40
30
20
10
0
K-Rs
E-Rs
P-Rs
S-Rs
C-Rs
FIGURE 1: PATTERN OF FREQUENCY OF THE IMPLICIT RESPONSES
IN OBSERVED CLASSES (AT STANFORD RESEARCH SITE)
80
70
60
a
b
c
50
40
30
0
20
10
0
K-Rs
E-Rs
P-Rs
S-Rs
C-Rs
FIGURE 2: PATTERN OF FREQUENCY OF THE IMPLICIT RESPONSES
IN OBSERVED CLASSES (AT DANANG RESEARCH SITE)
20
15
a
b
c
0
10
5
0
K-Rs
E-Rs
P-Rs
S-Rs
C-Rs
FIGURE 3: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION St--T IN REAL CLASS (RS1)
20
15
a
b
10
c
0
5
0
K-Rs
E-Rs
P-Rs
S-Rs
C-Rs
FIGURE 4: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION St--I--T IN REAL CLASS
(RS1)
20
15
a
b
c
0
10
5
0
K-Rs
FIGURE 5:
E-Rs
P-Rs
S-Rs
C-Rs
PATTERN OF TRANSACTION St--Sts--T IN REAL CLASS
(RS1)
20
15
a
b
c
0
10
5
0
K-Rs
E-Rs
P-Rs
S-Rs
C-Rs
FIGURE 6: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION St--Sts--T--I IN REAL CLASS (RS1)
20
15
a
b
c
d
10
5
0
K-Rs
E-Rs
P-Rs
S-Rs
C-Rs
FIGURE 7: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION OF St--I IN REAL CLASS (RS2)
20
15
a
b
c
d
10
5
0
K-Rs
E-Rs
P-Rs
S-Rs
C-Rs
FIGURE 8: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION OF St--I--T IN REAL CLASS (RS2)
20
15
a
b
c
d
10
5
0
K-Rs
E-Rs
P-Rs
S-Rs
C-Rs
FIGURE 9: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION St--Sts--T IN REAL CLASS (RS2)
20
15
a
b
c
d
10
5
0
K-Rs
E-Rs
P-Rs
S-Rs
C-Rs
FIGURE 10: PATTERN OF TRANSACTION St--Sts--T--I IN REAL CLASS (RS2)
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Yes
No
E-Rs 1
E-Rs 3
P-Rs 1
S-Rs 1
S-Rs2
S-Rs3
C-Rs2
C-Rs3
C-Rs4
C-Rs5
C-Rs6
FIGURE 11: PATTERN OF FREQUENCY OF THE RESPONSES IN THE QUESTIONAIRES
(YES/NO QUESTIONS)
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
(a)
(b)
(c )
K-Rs 1
K-Rs 2
K-Rs 3
K-Rs 4
K-Rs 5
K-Rs 6
E-Rs 2
E-Rs 5
E-Rs 6
P-Rs 2
P-Rs 3
C-Rs 1
FIGURE 12: PATTERNS OF FREQUENCY OF THE RESPONSES IN THE QUESTIONNAIRES
(MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS)
Types of Responses
Types of Transaction
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Levels of Transaction
(a)
Subculture-Related
Responses
NationalcultureRelated Responses
Crossculture-Related
Responses
Notes:
(1) St—Text
(2) St—Sts—Text
(a) 70% – 100%
(b) 30% - 69%
(c) 0% - 20%
(3) St—I—Text
(4) St—I--Sts—Text
(b)
(c)
Types of
Response
Aspects of Responses
K
E
P
Subsulture- Related
Responses
NationalcultureRelated Responses
CrosscultureRelated Responses
Notes:
K: Knowledge-related Responses
E: Experience-related Responses
P: Psychology-related Responses
S: Society-related Responses
C: Culture-related Responses
S
C
Part Four
DISCUSSION
1.
Empathy and Personality
Daniel Lerner in The Passing of Traditional Society writes:
• Empathy… is the capacity to see oneself in the other fellow’s situation.
This is an indispensable skill for people moving out of traditional settings.
Ability to empathize may make all the difference, for example, when the
newly mobile persons are villagers who grew up knowing all the extant
individuals, roles and relationships in their environment. Outside his village
or tribe, each must meet new individuals, recognize new roles, and learn
new relationships involving himself…
(Luce and Smith, 1987)
• High empathic capacity is the predominant personal style only in
modern society, which is distinctively industrial, urban, literate, and
participant. Traditional society is non-participant—it deploys people by
kinship into communities isolated from each other and from a center…
(Luce and Smith, 1987)
• “Transpection is an effort to put oneself in the head … of
another person. One tries to believe what the other person
believes, and assume what the other person assumes…
Transpection differs from analytical “understanding.” Empathy
is a projection of feelings between two persons with one
epistemology. Transpection is a trans-epistemological process
which tries to learn a foreign belief, a foreign assumption, a
foreign perspective, feelings in a foreign context, and
consequences of such feelings in a foreign context. In
transpection a person temporarily believes whatever the other
person believes. It is an understanding by practice.”
• Traditional peoples: Unable to imagine a viewpoint other than
that associated with fixed roles in the context of a local culture.
• Modern peoples: Able to imagine and learn a variety of
roles in the context of a national culture.
• Post-modern peoples: Able to imagine the viewpoint of
roles in foreign cultures.
(Luce and Smith, 1987)
2. Cross-cultural Awareness
Levels of cross-cultural awareness
There are four level of cross-cultural awareness as follows:
_________________________________________________________
I
Awareness of superficial
Tourism, textbooks,
or very visible cultural
National Geographic
II
Awareness of significant
& subtle cultural traits that
III
Awareness of significant
VI
Awareness of how another
culture feels from the
Culture conflict
situations
contrast markedly with
one’s own
Intellectual analysis
& subtle cultural traits that
contrast markedly with
one’s own
Cultural immersion:
living the culture
standpoint of the insider
Unbelievable, i.e.,
exotic, bizarre
traits: Stereotypes
Un believable, i.e.,
frustrating, irrational
Believable, cognitive
Believable because of
subjective familiarity
(Source: Hanvey, cited in Luce and Smith, 1987: 20)
3. Literature and Cross-cultural Learning Experience
Teaching American literature these days means dealing regularly with
complicated questions about the texts we teach. It also means asking additional
questions about the approaches we take in our classrooms. What teaching
challenge do new texts such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved or Art Spiegelman’s
Maus pose, and what opportunities do they offer. How is our teaching of more
familiar texts such as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Mark
Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn shaped by recent scholarship.
(Gere and Shaheen, 2001)
To make a claim for multi-culturalism is not… to suggest the
juxtaposition of several cultures whose frontiers remain intact, nor it is to
subscribe to a bland “melting pot” type of attitude that would level all
differences. It lies instead, in the intercultural acceptance of risks, unexpected
detours, and complexities of relation between break and closure. Every artistic
excursion and theoretical venture requires that boundaries be ceaselessly called
to question, undermined, modified, and reinscribed.
(Trinh, cited in Brannon and Greene, 1997: 50)
The John Wayne Style
1. I can go it alone
2. Just call me John
3. Pardon my French
4. Check with the home office
5. Get to the point
6. Lay your cards on the table
7. Don’t just sit there. Speak up!
8. Don’t take no for an answer
9. One thing at a time
10. A deal is a deal
11. I am what I am
(Toward Internationalism, Luce and Smith: 1987)
Part Five
CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS
and
SUGGESTIONS
A.
CONCLUSIONS
I. CC AND ITS LINGUISTIC CONTRIBUTIONS
• Reader/text transaction in CC helps re-evaluate values of
literary work.
• CC asserts the important role of individual reader in the
learning process
• CC evokes aesthetic readings
• CC stimulates critical thinking and creative writing
• CC helps students be aware of their interpretations
• CC activates basic knowledge
• CC forms a new function of literature
II. CC AND ITS EDUCATIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS
• CC evokes aesthetic feelings
• CC enhances readers’ appreciation and enjoyment
of literary work
• CC evokes human emotions and relationships
• CC improves personality and increases crosscultural learning experience
III. CC AND ITS SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTRIBUTIONS
• CC helps readers be aware of other cultures
• CC helps readers make sense of life via literature
• CC enhances cross-cultural learning experience and
personal growth
• CC increases self-awareness and cultural awareness
• CC increases cultural awareness
• CC increases sensitivity and sympathy towards others
B. IMPLICATIONS
1. For teachers of literature:
• Help teachers be aware of the connection between language
and culture
• Freeing LTs from conventional ideas of the traditional
approach
2. For students:
• Developing student self-awareness and self-identity in the
process of learning
• Encouraging LSts to take risks
• Encouraging language acquisition
• Expanding students’ awareness of cultures of other nations
• Educating the whole person
C. SUGGESTIONS
1.
Identify seven dimensions of importance to cross-cultural
competence
a. The capacity to be flexible
b. The capacity to be nonjudgmental
c. Tolerance for ambiguity
d. The capacity to communicate respect
e. The capacity to personalize one’s knowledge and perceptions
f. The capacity to display sympathy
g. The capacity for turn taking
(Ruben, 1976)
2. Include both bottom-up and top-down techniques
3. Activating the students’ schemata
4. Providing the necessary historical or cultural background
5. Using questions to elicit students’ responses related to social and
historical issues
a. Objects implying cultural values
b. Questions eliciting students’ responses related to beliefs
c. Questions eliciting students’ responses related to lifestyles
d. Questions eliciting students’ responses related to language
e. Questions eliciting students’ responses related to location setting
f. Questions eliciting students’ responses related to point-of-view
Thank you for your listening