Renewing Access
Access toto
Renewing
International
English
nternational English
by Richard Burgess
Have you heard the one about the Brit,
the American and the Canadian in a
hotel lift, together with a pretty girl
in a short skirt? Well, suddenly there
is a power cut and the lights go out. A
loud slap is heard. When the lights go
on again the American has a big red
slap mark on his cheek. “These damn
North Americans,” the Brit thinks, “they
simply don’t know how to behave!”
“These damn Canucks,” the American
thinks, “they’re just a bunch of hicks,
and I get the blame!” The Canadian
thinks: “I hope there’s another power
cut soon so I can slap the Yank again!”
No, not a real-life anecdote from
a Cappelen Damm work session on
the new Access to International
English book. But confirmation, as if
confirmation were necessary, that the
national stereotypes are all there
waiting to be put to use.
cting
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Today
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the globe
The Canadians resent the Americans,
the Americans disparage the Canadians
– and the British still haven’t learned
to differentiate between the two!
Of course, it hasn’t been like that
between us three writers. Far from
it – Robert Mikkelsen (the Yank), John
Anthony (the Canuck) and myself (the
Limey) have worked together on the
new edition of Access to International
English in a spirit of equality,
cooperation and amiability. (After all,
it must be difficult enough for them not
being British without me adding to their
burdens!) Three ex-pats with, between
us, several decades of experience
of writing textbooks in Norway. You
would think, then, that we would be
used to the process and prepared for
its challenges. But, strangely, each
book is like a new expedition into the
unknown in which you make exactly
the same discoveries as last time, but
are equally surprised by them. Such
discoveries include:
s and the the
in shackle
seen on
g a man
phone is
depictin
a mobile in Egypt along with
A mural
logo and
n
of Helwan
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wall of the
mem
com
k.
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other mur ew Hosni Mubara
rthr
ove
t
tha
• how much time there seems to be at
the beginning of the expedition.
• how little time there seems to be at
the end.
• how it is perfectly possible to spend
several hours writing one short
paragraph.
• how it is equally possible that that
very paragraph is the one that gets
axed by the editor, Butchering Birger.
An expedition is one metaphor for
writing a textbook, but there are also
others. Pregnancy, for example. Not
perhaps an immediately obvious one
when the three writers are all middleaged men, but it’s nonetheless apt: the
long period of gestation, the regular
check-ups to see that the foetus is
developing properly, and finally the
difficult birth itself, when Butchering
Birger becomes Benign and Benevolent
Birger, providing encouragement (“just
one more push!”) and laughing gas (i.e.
three-course restaurant meals) as
requ
required. Fortunately, on this occasion,
we aat least don’t have to argue about
wha
what to call the infant. She will be
nam
named after her elder sister …
A ra
rather more macabre extension of
the birth metaphor is found in a term
fam
familiar to all textbook writers, namely
“kil
“killing one’s babies”. This refers to
the process necessitated by a littlekno
known law of physics, closely related
to Sod’s Law, which states that
“t
“the optimum number of pages of a
te
textbook equals the total number of
ppages of the final draft minus one
fifth” (often formulated as
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
x = y – y/5). This means that not just
?
sentences but whole exercises, indeed
whole texts have to be thrown out at the
Introduction: Media in Mot
ion
last moment. In the old days these poor
rejected texts, like stillborn children,
would live out a sort of shadowy
existence in the Teacher’s Book – a
real book, but one rarely opened (and
invariably printed on inferior paper).
Today the advent of the internet
has made the Teacher’s Book, like
Purgatory, a thing of the past. Now any
rs
text that doesn’t make it past Birger’s
axe may be permitted a virtual
existence at access.cappelendamm.
es
no, along with all the other resources
to be found there. This not
AGE
LANGU
RMAL
D INFO
AL AN
M
only saves the writers from the
R
E 3: FO
OURS
AGE C
LANGU
trauma of literary infanticide,
it also means that textbooks
now come with a wealth of “free
extras” – at least, as long as the
websites are free, as they are at
Cappelen Damm.
Read the first paragraph below
and then make a list of the
forms of media
you have access to on a
daily basis. Which of these
are most important
to you? Compare your list
with a fellow student’s.
In this chapter we are going
to be looking at international
English and
the “media”. But what does
“The Media” mean? The
roots of this term
go back to the 1800s, when
newspapers were the first
“medium” through
which information could
be conveyed to a mass audienc
e. In the 1920s
the term became plural –
“media” – to cover the inventio
n of new channels of mass communication
such as radio and movies.
Today, the term
refers to a bewildering array
of communication channe
ls, including TV
broadcasting, cable networ
ks, online news website
s,
blogs
and much,
much more which we will
touch on in the coming pages.
These are sometimes referred to collectiv
ely as a single entity as in
“The media will be
covering the election closely.”
The internet
There is no doubt that the
most important media develop
ment of the
last decades has been the
rise of the internet. The
growth and development of the “web” has been
breathtaking. In 1989 it
became a system
open to anyone with a comput
er. By 1995 there were about
15 million
persons online. By 2000
that number had explode
d to 361 million users.
Ten years later there were
more than 2 billion people
online – 30% of the
population of the world
– and the growth showed
no signs of stopping.
Oliver Field from Los
Angeles video chats via
Skype with his girlfriend,
Elizabeth Chamberlain,
a
student in Tacoma,
Washington. Skype, the
internet video conferonfer
encing service, has been
a godsend for parents
with children away at
college, for far-flung
relatives keeping tabs on
one another, and, of
course, for long distance
lovers.
to convey å (over)bringe,
å
meddele / å formidle, å
kunngjere
plural flertall (gram.) /
fleirtal (gram.)
bewildering forvirrende/
forvirrande
array samling, rekke
entity enhet/eining
40
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Why is a new edition necessary?
The need for a radical rewrite – and
it is a rewrite rather than just an
update – is twofold; for one thing,
the world is a different place to whatt
it was in 2007 when the old book
was published. The Great Recession,,
the Occupy Wall Street movement,
uity
WikiLeaks, the Arab spring, the ubiquity
me
of social media – these are just some
of the events and developments that
have changed the world we live in
and that demand the attention of a
textbook writer trying to take the
pulse of the English-speaking world. If
I might be permitted a little trumpetblowing, feedback from present users
of Cappelen Damm’s books for English
at videregående level suggests that
the quality of the main “focus texts”
of our chapters is still seen as one of
our chief strengths. While some argued
that the internet and its revolution in
accessing information would somehow
make such texts superfluous, we have
always believed that the opposite
is true – that the sheer volume
of information available, and the
overwhelming cacophony of voices it
represents, makes the role of a focused,
explanatory text more important than
ever. In the new Access to International
English this role has been deepened and
broadened by drawing in other source
texts and embedding them in the focus
THE WORLD AT YOUR DOORSTEP
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6 WRITING
2 MAIN IDEAS
3 DISCUSSION
Work in groups:
m (see page
a Look for examples of ethnocentris
find and
100) in this excerpt. Note any you can
in your
compare your results with the others
group.
andings,
b Culture clash is defined as “misunderst
interanxieties and conflicts arising from the
values”.
action of people with different cultural
Do you think Tarquin Hall will experience
Lane?
culture clash when he moves to Brick
Give reasons for your opinion.
any
c+ Does the bar chart on page 110 give
just
grounds for the taxi driver saying “There’s
too many of them. Britain’s getting swamped”?
Why does he say this, do you think?
the description
d+ Do you think the narrator trusts
driver
of the Cockney East End that the taxi
opinion
gives? How does the author convey his
any
about this to the reader? Can you find
clear?
phrases he uses that make his attitude
136
notes to help you answer the questions.
– We was like one big ’appy family.
– Naa! It’s no good, is it?
ferences similar to those found in
or language?
example, were any causedORbyLDSincome
ING OF
areWmajor differences in
there
say
Would you
MEET
150 A
culture in your local milieu?
and keeps misA classmate is having a very bad day
correcting his
understanding the text. Help him by
statements and questions.
enough to
lucky
was
Hall
Taquin
a Apparently,
ble taxi driver.
knowledgea
very
a
get a ride with
part of
b I guess the East End is a very posh
London?
Cockneys,
c And Banglatown is the home of the
right?
End over the
d Not much has changed in the East
decades.
last few
Halden?
than
– better
e verbs
t will us
rmal tex
s an info nouns:
Wherea
…
al
ed that
an verb
more th ors recommend
ite
Inspect
e non-fin ):
use mor
see p. 90
ll likely
text wi
rticiple,
al
pa
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soc
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,
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est
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Halden
.
ter
4) A
ons (th
1) A fo
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love, in
revision
cti
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tor
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Having
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find Ha
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OF
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ING
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A MEET tasks:
Interactive
ors mad
Inspect
www.access.cappelendamm.no
that …
London
d in
rmal an
r into fo
g furthe
t nouns
Lookin
e abstrac
or
m
s
e
text
t may us
iety):
seems
e+ The Truman Buxon Brewery area
ent from the rest of the East End. How?
differ-
4 ANALYSIS
This exSee page 279 for an explanation of irony.
from an Engcerpt ends with the following quote
East End
lishman who had moved to the Cockney
of the 1930s:
society whose
“I felt that I had stumbled on a secret
one another by
members were communicating with
lost on me. I
signs whose significance was entirely
strange
was in a strange land inhabited by a
people.”
compared
a Why is this an ironic remark when
about
with the information given in this excerpt
End?
the people now living in the New East
without
b Irony is often used to make a point
author
actually stating it. What point is the
making here?
in this
c+ Try to find other examples of irony
author
excerpt. What points (if any) does the
make by using irony in these examples?
5 VOCABULARY
East
Look at the following sentences in Cockney
with them
End dialect and identify what is wrong
spelling
in terms of “proper” English expressions,
and grammar.
or
– ’ardly a day goes by without a knifing
shooting.
– Terrible it is.
but even so he
a Tarquin Hall grew up in London,
he arfelt like a stranger in a strange land when
had such
rived in the East End. Have you ever
person
an experience? Write a story in the first
(see page 278) about this experience.
with. Now
b + Pick a place you are well acquainted
it as if you
write a two-paragraph description of
first
were a foreign reporter seeing it for the
nationality
time. You can choose your reporter’s
as
as you wish. Make your description sound
to
odd as possible. For example: “Compared
seems
New York, Oslo is a city where everyone
are all
to wear a backpack. It appears as if they
the
prepared to head off to the woods in
dinner
evening to set up their tent and cook
over an open fire …”
Answer individually:
the London
a How long has the carnival been on
calendar?
b What are the roots of this carnival?
are promiculture
Caribbean
of
c What aspects
nent during the carnival?
d When does the carnival take place?
remember if
to
“don’ts”
and
“dos”
the
are
e What
you are planning to go to the carnival?
Answer in pairs:
most if
the
to
forward
look
you
would
f What
you went to this carnival?
overcome
g+ How can a carnival like this help
stereotypes?
cultural
to such
h+ Are there any dangers or drawbacks
carnivals?
7 QUICK RESEARCH
Choose one task:
including
a Write a brief report about Brick Lane
today and
a short history, pictures of the street
there.
information about present day activities
in
b Find the origins of “Cockney culture”
of it.
London’s East End. Give some examples
Has it died out completely?
as one of its
c+ The London Olympics in 2012 had
has hapaims to rejuvenate East London. What
held?
pened to the area after the games were
CARNIVAL
8 LISTENING: THE NOTTING HILL
East End, there
As we have seen in the text from the
culcan be conflicts and mistrust when different
Notting Hill
tures interact in an urban setting. The
issue. It is a
Carnival in London addresses just this
specifically
celebration of Caribbean culture started
whites and
to replace racial hostility between local
l fun. Now
Caribbean immigrants with multicultura
outside Brazil!
it is the biggest carnival in the world
Take
Listen to find out more about this carnival.
Glossary for task 8:
hostility fiendtlighet/fiendskap
mayhem kaos
prior to før
oppressor undertrykker/
undertrykkar
to repeal å oppheve
tension spenning
murky mørk
whiff antydning, pust /
aning, pust
nibble godbit
sense of direction
retningssans
casual her: ikke penklær /
her: ikkje finklede
A MEETING OF WORLDS
137
A MEETING OF WORLDS
text. The result is, if you will pardon
the buzzword, a sort of “polyphonic”
narrative – where explanation and
exemplification are combined – that
we hope will both clarify and inspire
debate.
The other need for a rewrite calls for a
dose of humility on our part; the last
book was the first of its kind for an
entirely new course. After it had been
used for a year or two it was clear, not
least from teachers’ suggestions to
our surveys, that there was room for
improvement. One important issue
here was the focus on language. While
the curriculum for Internasjonal
engelsk has important competence
aims concerning culture, society and
literature, it is nevertheless first and
foremost a language course. By the end
of the year, students should be able to
feel that, as well as gaining insights
into the world of international English,
they have raised their game in the
language itself. The old book wasn’t
systematic enough in its approach
to improving linguistic competence,
neither in terms of students’ own
written production nor in what the
curriculum refers to as “kunnskap om
språkets oppbygning på setnings- og
tekstnivå og bevissthet om språklige
virkemidler i ulike sjangrer”. Teachers
have pointed this out – and we have now
had a chance to do something about it.
New courses
To remedy this we have made some
significant changes and additions to
the book. At the end of each of the
book’s six chapters there are two
new units – a Writing Course and
a Language Course. The Writing
Course aims to give students a
helping hand in some of the basics
of writing well – crafting good
sentences and paragraphs, making
texts hang together. We don’t give
neat recipes for good texts – such
things don’t exist. Writing is a
creative process and as such can
never be completely systematised.
The focus is on practical work with
texts, looking at examples of good
usage as well as typical pitfalls
and how to avoid them. Essays get
special mention, since this is a
demanding genre that students
often wrestle with. This is not
surprising, really. It always
strikes me as a paradox that for
decades Norwegian students
have to a large extent been
evaluated in both Norwegian
and English in their ability to
produce a genre that they hardly ever
read – except for their own fumbling
attempts.
While the Writing Course is directed
towards language production, the
Language Course is directed towards
analysis. The aim of the course is to
provide students with some of the
terminology and tools with which to
manage the sort of linguistic analysis
that exam questions increasingly
demand: looking at how texts achieve
their effects, comparing texts for style
and intention. The six units deal with
everything from the basic concepts
of grammar to such topics as formal/
informal language, literary devices and
analysing genre. We believe that the
course will enable students to tackle a
wide variety of analytic tasks. In both
the language course and the writing
course the focus is on examples and
exercises. There is a world of difference
between telling somebody how to do
something and showing them how to do
it. We try to do the latter as much as
possible.
A world of literature
Another significant addition to the new
book is the final literature chapter.
There are basically two ways of using
literary texts in a textbook like this.
One way is to tie them to the themes
dealt with in the chapters and
select them primarily for their ability
to throw light on these themes. To
be honest, it always feels like a
rather unsatisfactory way of treating
literature, since it often involves
compromising quality for relevance.
Good short stories and poems about
particular topics are often difficult
to find. The alternative is to choose
literature for its own sake. In the
new book we shamelessly use both
strategies. That is to say, there are
literary texts in the first five chapters,
chosen for their relevance to the issues
discussed in the main text. But we
have also included a whole chapter of
literature that is chosen for what it can
tell us about its own world – the world
of literature.
The literature chapter can be used in
two ways: either as a store from which
to pick stories and poems at random,
or as a separate and continuous
“literature course”. If you choose the
latter, you get a structured review of
some of the key elements of literary
analysis – plot and theme, point of
view and irony, characterisation and
setting, each element discussed in the
light of a story in which this element
is especially important. Poetry is,
of course, also given its due. Some
teachers may be surprised to find that
we present students with our own
y of texts. We make no apologies
analysis
for this. It is part of our
belief in the importance of
showing rather than just
telling. Anyway, it doesn’t
leave the students idle. Far
from it – each analysis deals
w
with one aspect of the text,
aand as the chapter progresses
aand new elements of literary
aanalysis are dealt with, the
sstudents are invited to look
ba
back at earlier texts (and texts
el
elsewhere in the book) and put
th
their new insights to the test.
At the time of writing this, the
wr
writers are slogging through a
sec
second round of proofreading.
Soo
Soon the fruit of our loins, if
you
you’ll pardon the expression, will
see the light of day, delivered
from the printers in all its
illus
illustrated, multicoloured glory
(com
(complete, no doubt, with a
ridiculous error that inexplicably
survived five rounds of proofreading
and made it into the final text, only
to be discovered, triumphantly and
noisily, by a participating teacher at a
Cappelen Damm book presentation who
always preferred Aschehoug anyway).
Soon we can look forward to a time
without deadlines, a time when Birger,
if he appears in our dreams at all, will
appear as Bountiful Birger, without his
axe, but dressed in white, holding a
flower in one hand and a large cheque in
the other. Soon – but not yet. For after
the Birth comes the Afterbirth – the
book presentations, the answer key,
the website. Alas, paternity isn’t the
carefree business it used to be …
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