«Актуальные проблемы препо­да­ва­ния иностранных языков для профессионального общения». Поступившие работы

Bradbeer P. W.

Alfred Nobel University, Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine

NEWS AS A DISCUSSION TOPIC IN CONVERSATIONAL ENGLISH CLASSES FOR FIRST TO FOURTH YEAR PHILOLOGY STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITIES IN DNIPROPETROVSK

Any teacher conducting foreign language oral communicative classes has to decide how much or how little of his/her personal life experience, hobbies and interests can profitably be shared with the students. This question is particularly acute in the case of a native speaker of the language taught when given a free rein in the content andmethodology of his/her lessons, with minimal pressure to conform to a fixed curriculum. The aim of this type of lesson is usually to give students confidence in speaking the target language in a more or less natural communicative context, which for most students, despite the immense possibilities of the internet and the popularity of such programmes as Work and Travel in the USA, is their only regular contact with a native speaker. At the inception of a series of native speaker classes students may experience shyness, unfamiliarity with the native speaker’s accent and difficulty in transforming a predominantly written engagement with the target language into speech production. With this in mind, the author of this report, a Briton teaching at Alfred Nobel University, Dnipropetrovsk and the National Mining University of Ukraine, Dnipropetrovsk, no doubt in common with most of his colleagues, considers it imperative that the students should feel relaxed and that their interest should be engaged. One of the most direct routes to achieving this is for the teacher to venture as far as possible onto the students’ own ground in terms of subject matter for discussion.This should be almost an effortless process for younger teachers interested in rock music, films and football, for example. For an older teacher or one whose leisure interests diverge from those of the average 19 year old Ukrainian, this requires an openness to signals given by the students and caution in overly exposing students to his/her specific interests (in the author’s case, wildlife, classical music and military history). However, there is one exception when a teacher can usefully cajole students to share something of his/her wider curiosity about the world, and this is news.

It is worth clarifying at this point that the classes upon which the following reflections are based are essentially simply organized conversational classes conducted in ordinary classrooms without availability of multimedia. As groups are small, averaging about nine students present at a lesson, the teacher is able to engage all the students personally and focus, or refocus, the discussion at the level of the group as a whole. The students concerned all specialize in translation, range from the first to the fourth course, and pursue either fulltime or extramural forms of study. The level of English and motivation typically varies widely within each group, just as each groups differs in its command of English and attitude.

At first glance, news might seem too risky a topic to be worth the trouble. This is partly because the term news is intuitively associated with politics, which at the best of times tends to be divisive, liable to provoke students into wasting class time by talking emotionally in their native language. For this reason during this current turbulent period many universities have wisely discouraged the discussion of politics in language classes. Yet in quieter times politics may turn students off for the opposite reason, being seen as boring, corrupt hypocritical and impossible to change for the better. When elections were discussed in class, it was typical for students to say that they didn’t see the point in voting or that they voted «Against everybod». This contrasts with the more engaged attitude of students to politics in the UK in the 1980s when university debating societies could be the launching pads to political careers.

Other reasons why news seems an unattractive topic to students in Ukraine is that young and generous minds are repelled by the constant diet of disasters that news channels provide. At UK universities student charitable societies are well established so students feel more empowered to help relieve the suffering caused by disasters both close to and far from home and are therefore more receptive to news stories. Another negative factor is that following the news is an activity associated by students with their parents’ and grandparents’ generations and with the TV, newspaper and radio media, which students claim they do not use. The obvious answer to this is that most foreigners in Ukraine rely on the favourite medium of students, the internet, for their news. Endless entertaining news items and opportunities to extend one’s English vocabulary are provided by the free sites www.bbcnews.com  and  www.yahoo.com, to name only my favourites.

If one escapes from the binding association of news with politics and adopts a wider, more flexible definition of news as any type of event or phenomenon deemed worthy of attention in the local, national or international media in any format, it can become a more attractive topic to students and provide the lifeblood of a friendly, communicative class. When asked whether she has been impressed by any recent news event, a student lacking confidence in English may answer, «I don’t know any news. I don’t watch TV.», hoping that the teacher will move on to a more talkative student and leave her in peace, a vain hope! Even the most apathetic student will be affected directly or indirectly by some kind of news event and, probably, also retain the memory of a recent world event of universal resonance. The most frequently recollected news items are those which in some way relate to the students personally, blurring the distinction between public event and the students’ own lives. The first half of the year in Ukraine is studded with these events in the form of public holidays. For example, after Victory Day one can ask not only how the event was celebrated in terms of parades but also what the students did on this day, whether any of their ancestors spoke about their experience in the Great Patriotic War, whether as schoolchildren they paid visits to veterans. Less predictable news events affecting students abound: flu epidemics, abrupt weather changes, breakdowns in public transport, crime waves and occasionally something positive.

Probably the most inexhaustible category of news which personally affects students concerns sport and entertainment. Indeed, students have recommended so many films to me that I wonder when they find time to complete their university assignments! Of course, many students have highly original tastes in film, one recent surprise being the mention of a Jane Austen biopic. However, it is no slight upon their intelligence to note that each generation of students accord a near cult status to certain films, actors and musicians, which provides a range of topics almost guaranteed to attract the interest of the entire class. Over the past academic year the films Hunger Games (both parts), the Hobbit (both parts), Iron Man, Thor and the serial, Game of Thrones, have been much discussed in class, all of which suggests a penchant for escapism. This year’s Oscars have yielded welcome material in the form of Jared Leto’s unstoppable success and Leonardo di Caprio’s chronic failure to win the recognition he seeks. Ideally, the teacher should invest time in watching some of these films or assign them to be viewed in English as homework. Should time prove insufficient, just listening to the interweaving strands of student discourse about the most popular, or sometimes the most hated, films, actors or musicians will suffice to give the teacher orientation on these topics in class discussion.

When students are encouraged to approach news according to their own tastes their confidence in expressing their thoughts in English and in responding to questions about what they consider newsworthy increases. If the teacher shows a genuine interest in what the students have to say and allows them to expand his/her cultural horizons (even though this may concern British or American as much as Russian or Ukrainian popular culture), then a genuine reciprocity of communication takes place. The teacher is bound to offer news stories of his/her own choice, partly as an invitation to the students to respond with their own. In this way a teacher can help expand the students’ perceptions of the world or clarify misconceptions on themes of potential relevance to the students such as AIDS, Chernobyl or the cultures of popular foreign holiday destinations such as Egypt and Turkey. Provided the teacher respects the opinion of every student, knows when to change the topic and is moderate in expressing disagreement, the rewards of discussing news can be great.