Reading and Language Commons^™

Aesthetics In Gao's Soul Mountain, Mabel Lee

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Aesthetics in Gao's Soul Mountain" Mabel Lee analyses Nobel Laureate 2000 Xingjian Gao's aesthetics. Transnational conglomerates today control the book industry from publishing house to bookshop and through aggressive market strategies they exert considerable influence on readers. Nonetheless, there are writers who refuse to capitulate to market demands and seek only to actualize their aesthetic ideas in the creation of literary texts. One such writer is Gao, author of the novel Soul Mountain. Lee posits that Gao's aesthetics is founded on the close interrogation of both Chinese and European models and practices and explores specific …

Nostalgia In Oral Histories Of Israeli Women, Yael Zilberman

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Nostalgia in Oral Histories of Israeli Women" Yael Zilberman explores the narration of nostalgia of elderly women about the city of Be'er Sheva. In their narration, the subjects of the study create textual and spatial practices which are engendered and create analogies between the city, their maturing/ed bodies, and by-gone youth. Further, the grief owing to the perceived condition of the city intensifies the idealized description of the city and the longing for its past. Zilberman's study brakes new ground in that the study of urban experience within folklore is a lesser explored field as the urban …

Victims Of The City In Novels Of Zola And Dostoevsky, Marta L. Wilkinson

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Victims of the City in Novels of Zola and Dostoevsky" Marta Wilkinson argues that urbanity in its nineteenth-century setting functioned as the culpable agent in criminal behavior found in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and in several of Zola's Rougon-Macquart novels. Wilkinson an analysis of the novels based on Merlin Coverly's concept of psychogeography which supports the extension of the cityscape as an integral part of the novels' characters. Further, Wilkinson illustrates how in Zola's and Dostoevsky's novels the city reigns triumphant as characters fall victim to disease, drink, or are left with desperate choices: in Dostoevsky's novel …

Contemporary Us-American Satire And Consumerism (Crews, Coupland, Palahniuk), J.C. Lee

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Contemporary US-American Satire and Consumerism (Crews, Coupland, Palahniuk)" J.C. Lee focuses on contemporary satire's potential (or lack thereof) for change, reform, or rebellion through an investigation of works by Harry Crews, Douglas Coupland, and Chuck Palahniuk, all of which target consumerism. The said writers employ satire not to initiate rebellion or cultural change, but to reflect the problematic role of institutions in modern life and, in turn, the potential, even hope, for personal growth. Lee's analysis of texts by Crews, Coupland, and Palahniuk is intended to question satire's potential as a form of cultural critique and institutional …

Memory, Identity, And Narration: A Book Review Of New Work By Assmann And Conrad And Tilmans, Vree, And Winter, Simona Mitroiu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Utilizing The Interactive Reading Model In A Continuing Education Course, Shawn Mcrae

MA TESOL Collection

This paper seeks to provide an alternative method of reading instruction to female Saudi Arabian university students enrolled in a continuing education class for banking. Rather than a teacher-centered approach that relies on textbooks for materials development, a student-centered approach has been utilized in order to encourage participation, allowing the learners to have more input in the learning process. The use of student-generated materials allows for an authentic medium of communication, enabling students to practice their language learning skills using topics of social and personal relevance. From a teaching perspective, this is extremely important; it can increase students’ motivation, stepping …

Refractions: Poems Through The Prism Of Proscription, Kayla Ahmed

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The chief aim of this study is to establish a working knowledge of contemporary Tibetan poetry and attain a sense of its development both chronologically and through displacement via diaspora. This is achieved by a brief analytical comparison between traditional and modern forms of Tibetan poetry on the basis of structure, language, content, themes, functions and uses. The frustration between the desire for cultural preservation and the desire for innovation within the Tibetan exile community is also explored. Ultimately this coalesces in a collection of original poetry that reflects the elements of contemporary Tibetan poetry and the pain of life …

Read Fest: Academic Library Programming For Pre-Kindergarten Students, Laura Wright, Michael Holt

The Southeastern Librarian

Three factors influence an academic library’s decision to interact with the community; a need expressed from the community, the mission of the library, and a response to a specific problem (Schneider 2003). Odum Library at Valdosta State University (VSU) developed Read Fest in response to a perceived need in the community and in support of the library’s mission. Historically, South Georgia has had a high illiteracy rate; according to the National Center for Education Statistics most recent (2003) estimates, an average 22% of residents in Lowndes County and its neighbors lack basic literacy skills. Read Fest is an opportunity for …

Essay Writing Instructional Lexicon And Semantic Confusion, Amir Kalan

English Faculty Publications

“Introduction,” “body,” and “conclusion” are the most accessible words in the instructional lexicon for ESL writing teachers when they want to describe the structure of a typical five-paragraph persuasive or argumentative essay or its shorter variations for standardized tests such as TOEFL and IELTS. They are frequently employed to refer to the three tiers of the hamburger essay in textbooks, on classroom boards, and in YouTube tutorials.

Not surprisingly, English learners also might give you the same words if asked what the main components of an essay are. Like ESL teachers, students usually use the same terms or their equivalents …

Performing Literacy: How Women Read The World In The Late Eighteenth-Century British Novel, Amy Hodges

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the intersection of sensibility, Social identity, and literacy practices among representations of women readers in four late eighteenth-century British novels. Through an analysis of the authors' use of identity constructs which shaped and were shaped by reading practices, this study documents the rise of Social identity formation as mutually constitutive with the history of reading. The first chapter reveals how Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote uses Arabella's follies as education for readers about the corresponding processes of reading their society and reading novels. The second chapter argues that Frances Burney's Evelina considers women's ability to read others …

Science Fiction And Fantasy: The Cosmic Players, Kristin Laughtin-Dunker

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

This presentation gives an overview of science fiction and fantasy, including its origins, the prominent writers in each era, and its many subgenres and variations.

Language For Specific Purposes (Lsp) Web-Based Assessment And The Speaking Performances Of Two Ability Groups, Malinee Phaiboonnugulkij, Kanchana Prapphal

PASAA

This study examines the validity and reliability of an Internetintegrated test to assess language for specific purposes (LSP) speaking abilities of the students in the English for Tourism course at a Thai university, and explores whether this test can identify differences in the students' abilities in three task types in the context of tourism in Thailand. The sample group was comprised of 120 third-year university students. A two-way ANOVA was conducted to explore the differences in the performances of the two ability groups in attempting the three test-task types. Content analysis was employed to investigate the similarities and differences in …

The Use Of Multilevel Writing Tasks In An Efl Classroom, Apiwan Nuangpolmak

PASAA

The diversity in language learners not only includes demographic factors such as age, gender and educational background, but also includes psychological aspects; namely interest, need, and motivation. However, it is often the learners' mixed language proficiency which causes major problems in the classroom. The current study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the design and implementation of a series of multilevel writing tasks, created to address the issues of mixed-ability groups, by offering choices for learners to work on the task levels appropriate to their proficiency. The findings from the analysis of the learners' texts suggested that intask supporting features …

Measuring Grammatical Complexity In Test-Based Spoken Discourse, Kornwipa Poonpon

PASAA

Grammatical complexity is one of the important criteria to judge whether or not a language learner is proficient· in a particular language. However, grammatical complexity in spoken language is still under-investigated, mainly due to its unreliable operationalization in previous studies. This article discusses this challenge and its effect and argues for an alternative practice to select grammatical complexity measures for test-based spoken discourse. The article starts with a review ofliterature on grammar in spoken discourse and role of grammatical complexity in test-based spoken discourse. Then selections of grammatical complexity measures in previous studies are discussed. This leads to an argument …

Learner Corpus Linguistics In The Efl Classroom, Peter Crosthwaite

PASAA

Learner corpora, or searchable collections of the written or spoken production of language learners, have become increasingly vital in the field of applied linguistics. As advances in computational linguistics and natural language processing have allowed for the automatic or semi-automatic parsing, tagging and coding of large chunks of learner-produced text, there is increasing interest in the analysis of large-scale corpora of many millions of words, collected from a broad range of linguistic tasks, language backgrounds, and learner proficiencies.

Using Positive Psychology Exercises In The Esl Classroom To Improve Student Well-Being, Ian T. Mcdonald

PASAA

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings.'

English Unlimited, John Viano

PASAA

Tilbury, A., Hendra, L. A., Rea, D., & Clementson, T. (2011). English Unlimited (Upper Intermediate). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

English As An International Language: Perspectives From Instructors In A Mainstream English Class, Wutthiphong Laoriandee

PASAA

English as an international language (EIL) has mainly been addressed by non-native world Englishes scholars to non-native English students. Studies on explicit instruction of EIL that emphasizes plurality of the language and culture, and communicative strategies toward different speakers have rarely been conducted in mainstream classes where the majority of the students are native speakers. This preliminary study, inspired by Smith's ( 1983) idea that EIL concepts be taught to everyone, including native speakers, investigates perceptions of instructors at Purdue University, who are mainly English native speakers and teach a course on speech communication (COM 114) to mainly native-speaker students. …

Teacher Into Counselor: Are You Ready For The Transformation?, Pattama Sappapan

PASAA

Teachers have a number of roles to play in the teaching and learning process. However, our role as counselors or advisers in helping facilitate learner independence in a self access learning center may have not been fully realized nor practiced by many teachers. The aims of this paper are to discuss the teacher's role as a counselor in a self-access learning center and encourage teachers to contribute more to the development of learner autonomy. First, the key concepts of autonomy, the role of selfassessment, and self access learning center are discussed. Next, the teachers' role as a counselor is proposed, …

Implementing Blended Learning With Graduate Students Using The Moodle Platform, Prateep Kiratibodee

PASAA

A few years ago, I heard about blended learning and Moodle from a colleague. He talked about its benefits and how the online courses have helped him and his students in their teaching and learning. This talk sparked the idea of using Moodle to help my students learn better. However, with my regular hectic schedule, I kept making excuses to postpone doing what I thought could be beneficial for my students.