Taboos and Issues

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Taboos and Issues ELT Journal · April 2003

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DOI: 10.1093/elt/57.2.205 · Source: OAI

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Taboos and Issues R. MacAndrew and R. Martínez Language Teaching Publications, 2001 80pp. £18.00 isbn

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A great deal has been written about the lightness of much EF L material, and it is the major coursebook publishers which have come in global for most criticism. On the whole, appealing to the market does not lead to risk-taking. Rinvolucri (1999: 14) notes that ‘The EFL discourse world avoids the shadow side of life with little or no reference to death, poverty or war.’ Thornbury (1999: 16) adds to this list when he bemoans the lack of mention of homosexuality in EF L coursebooks, saying that ‘Gayness is about as omitted as anything can be.’ This lack of what we might call ‘realness’, and the supremacy of linguistic form over content, have been the main two criticisms. So why is the EF L material world so far from real life? One reason is that in the absence of a real culture to root itself in, apart from a heterogeneous global culture, EF L has had to invent one. This leads to a world in which nothing too o¤ensive happens, or is even mentioned. Rinvolucri’s (1999: 12) ‘ EFL subculture’, with its ‘soft, fudgey, sub-journalistic, woman’s magaziney world of EF L ese course materials’, or Pulverness’s (1999: 6) ‘rarefied atmosphere of Cosmopolis’, do not easily lend themselves to the status of important global issues. Then there is the matter of linguistic form. As Thornbury points out (1999: 15), talking about the coursebook: ‘Form is safe. It sells books. Meaning, relevance, engagement: these are unstable, fickle, not safe.’ In a world in which subject matter is almost always subservient to the god of language, one can sometimes feel that both materials and classrooms have been stripped of anything truly meaningful in life. Taboos and Issuesis not a coursebook, however, and supplementary materials have always been able to get away with more. Not having to please the entire world helps. There are still hazards, though, in addressing the weightier side of life. I was interested to see how the authors would manage these questions of cultural context and focus on form through the material. And, perhaps most crucially, to see whether a teacher could use these materials to meaningfully engage her students in really important matters.

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The idea behind the materials is to provide a set of ‘straightforward, easy- to-use’ lessons on controversial topics. Aimed at students of ‘intermediate level and above’, the 40 topics range from the death penalty, through sexual harassment, gay families, AIDS , euthanasia, and the legalization of drugs. Each unit is presented on a double page, with discussion questions and text on the left-hand side, and language work and further discussion activities on the right. The material is photocopiable, and the layout lends itself to this. The authors point out in the Introduction that they expect the material to be used by ‘experienced teachers’, and so the teachers’ notes have been kept to a minimum. There are also some wise words about how to deal with the ‘sensitive nature’ of much of the material. This is a kind of necessary health warning, since the authors and publishers have not steered clear of any contentious topic. Some topics are potentially more controversial than others, depending of course on the situation. The astute teacher will think carefully about context before plunging into the units on Gays and Jobs, or Abortion, or Torture. Indeed, almost all of the topics require a good knowledge of the context, and of the students. Each unit starts with a discussion activity, which both introduces relevant vocabulary and entices the student into thinking about the topic. Sensibly, the teachers’ notes at the beginning of the book suggest that the student should be given time to think about the topic silently before going into pairs or small groups. In the unit ‘It should be banned!’, for example, there is an activity which invites students to think about whether such issues as smoking inside public buildings, abortion pills, smacking children, topless sunbathing, and smoking marijuana are banned in their own country. They then have to compare with other students in their group. This discussion activity is followed by a reading task which o¤ers four articles on laws in four di¤erent countries: topless sunbathing in Brazil, fox-hunting in England, smoking bans in the US A , and a Ku Klux Klan rally in an unnamed context, but presumably also the US A . The articles are quasiauthentic, and read fairly naturally. Reading tasks are varied; true/false questions, prediction questions, filling in a table, and questions which allow the student to express their own opinion about the facts presented. In the case of ‘It should be banned!’, students are given two or three questions on each short text. Again, there is plenty reviews

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of potential for students to compare ideas and feelings on the issues. I tried out this unit with a group of Dutch teachers with upper-intermediate level English. This was ambitious on a number of fronts. Firstly, the Dutch are famous for their unshockability. Drugs? Prostitution? Gay marriage? Euthanasia? You name it, the Dutch have discussed it at length, and usually decided in favour. Secondly, this kind of material obviously works best in a multicultural class, a fact which is perhaps true of much of the book. These topics are certainly challenging enough, and a multinational group containing a couple of Dutch students would really do it justice. More worryingly, I found that the complexity of the language and vocabulary did not hold up very well at this level, despite the fact that it is called ‘intermediate and above’. I found, as I find with many materials, that I wanted to supplement it with something really authentic and ‘here and now’. This was both because of the linguistic complexity issue, and because it’s always a good idea to take advantage of students’ real world preoccupations. I was able to do this as a prominent Dutch politician had been assassinated a few days before, and everyone was talking about how to ban guns. I could therefore bring in a Herald Tribunearticle on the topic, which made the whole lesson more challenging. This is as it should be: the responsive teacher will find ways of really engaging their students in the topic and of challenging them. So what of my ‘real cultural context’ question? Not much ‘fudginess’ here. Most of the texts are rooted in specific cultures, and deal with real events. In the unit on torture, for example, one of the articles deals with Dr Sheila Cassidy’s real experience during the coup in Chile in 1975. In the unit ‘Nobody needs a gun’, the reading passage is about the Columbine massacre in the USA in 1999. These are useful texts. Most teachers know that when a particular topic comes up, it’s always good to have a real situation, and it’s not always easy to find something in today’s newspaper. Then, of course, comes the section on language. Well, we knew it had to happen. It would be too much to think we could have material which aimed at really engaging learners in meaningful subject matter without then giving them a cloze text or a collocation exercise. In fact, though, the authors have worked hard to make the language section as unobtrusive as possible. Many of the exercises are on vocabulary rather than manipulation of form— and, of course, they can be left out of the lesson 206

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itself. I’ve always thought it a great pity to get the students really engaged in the topic and then get them to do an exercise which exhorts them to ‘read through the text again and find the verbs which go with the following nouns’. Each unit ends with a further discussion section. Again, the formats are diverse, so that if a teacher decides to use this material on a regular basis, there is always some variety. There are debates, small group discussions of specific situations, and opportunities to ‘choose your favourite quotation’, among others. One of the attractive features of these activities is that they allow for a high level of personalization. ‘What would you do in this situation?’ is a good way of ensuring that students really engage with the topic. So what of learner engagement, that ‘fickle’ and ‘unstable’ quality? I believe that working on real topics in the classroom is one of the best ways of engaging learners and promoting real learning. Taboos and Issues is a brave and useful book. The thoughtful teacher will use it to tune into her students’ own agenda, perhaps even inviting them to choose their own topics. Whether the teacher is able to truly engage her students using this material will ultimately depend on her own skill and judgement. Above all, heaviness needs a lightness of ouch. t References Pulverness, A. 1999. ‘Context or pretext ? Cultural content and the course book’. Folio Vol. 5/2: 5–10. Rinvolucri, M. 1999. ‘The UK , EFL ese sub-culture and dialect’. Folio Vol. 5/2: 12–14. Thornbury, S. 1999. ‘Window-dressing vs. crossdressing in the EFL sub-culture’. Folio Vol. 5/2: 15–17. The reviewer Sue Leather runs Excel Training Services, a training company based in the Netherlands which operates internationally. She has extensive experience of ELT , particularly in the fields of teacher training and management. She is a frequent contributor to international conferences, and writes regularly for ELT journals. Her main professional interests are in the management of change in developing contexts and cross-cultural teacher training. Sue Leather is also a writer of short stories and srcinal readers, as well as books on methodology. Her publications include a range of readers in the Cambridge University Press Cambridge English Readers series. Email: [email protected] reviews

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