ENGLISH STUDY TEACHES ABOUT THE WORLD

My main objection to the Baing book is that it is too esoteric, insular and cloistered in the halls of the university English department.  In other words it is too complex and narrowly focused.

ENGLISH OUTCOMES EDITION Susan Baing Oxford University Press 2010 ISBN 978 0 19 556542 3

The writer does focus on the world and passes a general lack of focus to the students and teachers. This makes the book too out of date in world affairs. Much has happened in the world since the book went to the publishers 3 years ago.

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She opts for depth rather than breadth in issues. She covers what she wants to write about and what she knows about rather than what students could learn about. Modern education is supposed to be relevant and comprehensive.

So much in the film reviews was written in pretentious abstract words that have little relevance to the students once they leave the class room. Take Madagascar sequel strictly for kids.

Essentially the sequel has settled down into a sitcom. Each of its zoo raised animals gets resolved before the credits roll.

Gloria is the ghetto fabulous hippo. The penguins have rehabbed on an old crashed airplane. The wreck fortuitously unites Alex with his dad.

His dad’s rival demands that the son performs the rites of passage which result in his rival knocking the stuffing out of him.

What the hell does all that mean to the average Papua New Guinea student? It is in cultural ga ga land. Will the students get to see the film? No. Does the teacher understand the passage? Maybe.

The words and idiom would not be understood by most students and teachers. This is a review written by an expatriate. It is one of the first reviews in the book on P.10 that sets the tone.

English study should give massive opportunity to teachers to open the world to the students and encourage them to think about, discuss and write about the world.

As a teacher with a world view, I do not want to be limited by a book on what I can introduce to students. There is a real world out there that students need to know about. The focus may change class by class.

Who cares about the bias of writers? Most writings have bias that can not be identified.

Who cares about the words that show the writers’ bias. If there is bias, we can read another report that has bias in the other direction.

Who cares about second hand knowledge in film reviews? Tell us about the film. There is massive history in films well chosen.

In years gone past, I showed video clips to students on all sorts of issues. They saw clips of the film Zulu which led to the colonial history of South Africa.

They watched clips about Rev. James Jones in the faith colony in Guyana in which over a thousand of followers took poison and died. This led to discussion of sects that isolate followers and take their money and daughters.

Papua New Guinea had Mathias Yeliwan on Mt Yangoru and Black Jesus who impregnated girls claiming to reward parents with heaven. Religious con-men are the same the world over. This is good background knowledge for students. 

There is a foreign sect presently reaching out for boys and girls in this country. And they are using the tried and true strategy of alienating young people from their families.

There were reports on the Middle East wars and the dangers of internet yet to come to Papua New Guinea.

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This was all general knowledge that could be written about and discussed in class. Perhaps the 60 Minutes team was a little biased on the internet story. Who cares? The teacher can add the balance. It is not a big deal.

What about the effects of global warming? Let the teachers prepare a massive scrap book. What of the killing of whales?

Nora Vagi Brash and Lady Morauta are good ladies. But they do not have a world view that we are aware of.

What of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the world? Students should know about the politics of oil. Then there is the politics of developing nations in the world. The newspapers are full of such reports for the class scrap book.

We can discuss the basic tenets of Islam. This can be followed by an examination of suicide bombing and the violence in the Middle East, supported by newspaper cuttings. These are all matters that will never be raised in any other subject. Social science? No. 

This is what English study is all about. We learn about the world, talk  and write about it while developing an intellectual world framework.

Let those students study from the Baing book if they want to spend their lives cloistered in the halls of the university English Department.

Papua New Guinea students have enough problems with learning and using English as second language speakers.

They do not need to be overtaxed with a text book that seeks to launch them into the heights of a first language expatriate learning culture.

Whatever happened to derivation of words? There are hundreds of words based on Latin and Greek. This is very practical knowledge. The latin for the head is Caput. What do we call the head of a ship? captain. What do we call something we put on our heads? cap. What is the word to cut off the head? decapitate.

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I tell PNG students that they have a link to the Roman Empire and England through the hundreds of words in Latin. This has never been part of the educational curricula of Papua New Guinea.

What ever happened to teaching students to elevate their writing from baby talk? They so badly need it right to grade 12. The Baing book ignores this completely. It is not a passing fad but the very foundation of writing skill.

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a story written in simple sentences and require them to combine sentences.

Readings from the newspaper are not left to the teachers. Those that appear in the back of the book are not really relevant in supplying information for young people to apply to their adult life and in knowledge of the world.

Let the teachers compile a massive scrap book for use in English classes that enable teachers and students to follow their interests and topics in the news week by week.

Teachers have to be encouraged to use the media as the basis of their teaching. Issues can be followed, discussed, reported and written on.

One problem with teachers in this country is that some want to elevate their knowledge and words above the understanding of students to demonstrate that the teacher is on a high intellectual plane.

Some will prefer that students are unable to do the work as it will show again that the teacher is more intelligent than the students.