Teaching English Today

Welcome to the the winter 2012 edition of TEACHING ENGLISH TODAY

We trust that you will find the articles that follow interesting, challenging and useful.

From the Editor

When I was in Standard 4 (the equivalent of Grade 6) at Muir College in Uitenahge, we had a new English teacher arrive in May. He was actually high-school trained, and set us a stinker of an exam paper..

‘Teach the books, touch the heart’

C. S. Lewis said, ‘We read to know that we are not alone.’ Lewis was absolutely not thinking about literacy in South Africa when he uttered that much-quoted line, but I have still found it comfortin

The status of English in a multilingual South Africa

This paper analyses language politics in South Africa in an attempt to understand what is happening in multilingual classrooms.

Two Yeats poems

The Wild Swans at Coole

It will perhaps be difficult for children to appreciate this poem fully. It shares the general sorrow that the most beautiful things cannot be kept; but most of all it expresses a personal sorrow at the poet’s loss of youth.

Dictionaries up for grabs!

In the last issue of TET, we included the following announcement: LONGMAN HAVE DONATED 10 DICTIONARIES TO READERS WHO SEND AN EMAIL TO THE EDITOR (DR MALCOLM VENTER, drv@worldonline.co.za) GIVING, IN NO MORE THAN 50 WORDS, A TIP ON HOW TO USE DICTIONARIES IN THE CLASSROOM.

Arthur Miller’s THE CRUCIBLE

I’ve decided to focus on three aspects of this play:
Why did Miller write The Crucible – the circumstances and reasons?
Three of the main themes in The Crucible.
Three of the main characters in The Crucible

“Pity like a naked new born babe” – the key speech in MACBETH

Many people are puzzled by Macbeth’s speech about “pity like a naked new born babe.” Even when they realize that the speech may have something to do with the Apocalypse, there are still difficulties with some of the details.

KING LEAR

All Shakespeare’s play are remarkable, but many would regard King Lear is perhaps the most remarkable of them all. An amazing amount of value – narrative and dramatic power, human knowledge and insight, sheer poetry – is packed into this play, which on the Elizabethan stage would have taken about three hours to perform.

Notable notices

Here are some interesting notices that could be used in teaching:

Teaching the comma splice / run-on sentence

Using the idea of newspaper headlines and articles to launch the correction of errors struck me as a possibility after I heard our head of department say at a meeting:” The comma splice is getting out of control.”

Gr 12 listerning comprehension

A useful listening comprehension exercise / test for Grade 12 HL English learners.

Some literary quailities of children’s and young adult books

Over the years, the style and content of children’s books have changed. Usually South African books have followed developments in other countries – often after a delay of a few years.

English organisations in South Africa

Here are three organisations that might be of interest to you:

Marking my territory

Some decades ago, an ethologist, Robert Ardrey, gained much exposure with the idea of the ‘territorial imperative’. His study of animal behaviour led him to the conclusion that the strongest drive in the beast was setting up his territory and marking the boundaries over which others of its kind must not cross unless prepared to bare tooth and claw.