What I ‘know’: Literary studies and the teaching of English

This essay unfolds through a series of juxtapositions, involving storytelling and writing of a more analytical nature. In thinking about what I ‘know’ as an English teacher, my aim has been to present my ideas in a form that might do justice to the contradictions and complexities of my professional life, including my continuing efforts to negotiate a pathway between the rich particularities of the educational settings in which I have worked and my knowledge and values as an English teacher. My primary focus is on how my literary education has shaped and been shaped by my work as an English teacher vis-à-vis a devaluing of teachers’ disciplinary knowledge that has occurred through standards-based reforms. I attempt to make the standpoint from which I am writing an object of scrutiny, thus producing an account of what I ‘know’ that arises out of my work as an English teacher and returns to it as a necessary dimension of a politically committed praxis.

Reading the local and global: teaching literature in secondary schools in Australia

Recently Australia has witnessed a revival of concern about the place of Australian literature within the school curriculum. This has occurred within  a policy environment where there is increasing emphasis on Australia’s place  in a world economy, and on the need to encourage young people to think of  themselves in a global context. These dimensions are reflected in the  recently published Australian Curriculum: English, which requires students to read texts of ‘enduring artistic and cultural value’ that are drawn from  'world and Australian literature’. No indication, however, is given as to how the reading and literary interpretation that students do might meaningfully be framed by such categories. This essay asks: what saliences do the categories of the ‘local’, the ‘national’ and the ‘global’ have when  young people engage with literary texts? How does this impact on teachers’  and students’ interpretative approaches to literature? What place does a  ‘literary’ education, whether conceived in ‘local’, 'national’ or ‘global’  terms, have in the twenty-first century?

A new beginning? John Yandell's the social construction of reading in urban classrooms

John Yandell’s The Social Construction of Meaning: Reading Literature in Urban Classrooms provides a powerful counterpoint to current policy discourse in education. By focusing on the social interactions that occur in the classrooms of two English teachers, Yandell shows how their pupils are able to explore dimensions of language and experience that far exceed the outcomes prescribed by official curriculum documents. This is because their teachers conceive of reading as a social activity in which everyone can participate. Yandell thereby affirms the value of a literary education as an integral part of an educational project that is genuinely democratic and inclusive.

Error analysis in translation : a case study of the Turkish-English language pair

Examines translation errors made by Turkish stream students from a three-year, full-time interpreting and translating degree course. Attempts to find out how students progress towards the curriculum objectives and how well they translate as their studies progress. The significance of errors in translation and teaching translation skills are also discussed.

Automatic rule induction in Arabic to English machine translation framework

This chapter addresses the exploitation of a supervised machine learning technique to automatically induce Arabic-to-English transfer rules from chunks of parallel aligned linguistic resources. The induced structural transfer rules encode the linguistic translation knowledge for converting an Arabic syntactic structure into a target English syntactic structure. These rules are going to be an integral part of an Arabic-English transfer-based machine translation. Nevertheless, a novel morphological rule induction method is employed for learning Arabic morphological rules that are applied in our Arabic morphological analyzer. To demonstrate the capability of the automated rule induction technique, we conducted rule-based translation experiments that use induced rules from a relatively small data set. The translation quality of the hybrid translation experiments achieved good results in terms of WER.

Literary English and the challenge of multimodality

How to understand and argue for the nature and place of literary texts and experience in contemporary English curriculum has been and continues to be the subject of much debate. While literature as traditionally conceptualised remains an important presence in much English curriculum, the notion of what 'literature' is, or what the category of 'literary' texts and cultural forms might encompass, in a context where literacy is understood as multimodal and English and literacy curriculum addresses multimodal literacies accordingly, is less clear. This paper addresses two areas with respect to literature and literature teaching in the digital age: first, issues surrounding the ways in which national curriculum guidelines in England and Australia envisage the teaching of literature, in principle and in practice; and second, the challenges presented to print-based conceptions of literature and literature teaching within English by significantly broader conceptualisations of literature encompassing a range of aesthetic multimodal texts and forms. The kinds of insights, experience and understandings generated through the study and creation of literary and aesthetic texts in English, it is argued, are now needed more than ever. However, as literary experience becomes increasingly transmodal, how English seeks to manage media shift to encompass both print and digital forms remains a challenging issue.

Real english and english lite : what texts should we teach in the english classroom? (1) or English lite and thick lit : what is the debate about?

Why is it that Prime Minister John Howard wants to micro-manage English curricula? Why does how teachers teach English and Literature regularly make it to the front and editorial pages of the national dailies? The author attempts to critique that phenomenon, to explain her state of mind - that of being both alert and alarmed. The latest round of the debate began with Tony Thompson's article, 'English Lite is a tragedy for students', in 'The Age' on 12 September 2005. He was concerned that VCE English might be reduced to a single print text and he was alarmed about the watering-down of curriculum driven by 'postmodern notions'. The author is at odds with many of Thompson's views and discusses her stance on various aspects of his propositions. Issues examined include Thompson's argument that no multimodal text yields as much significance as a piece of genuine literature; that students are not being 'stretched' far enough; the false dichotomy between aesthetic/formalist manoeuvres on the one hand and postmodern ones on the other; how texts make meaning to students as consumers and the rationale for the use of pop culture texts to connect with students.

Fresh Freud: no longer lost in translation

The new translations of Freud into English highlight the question as to the nature of Freud's quest and achievement. They show a livelier Freud than the Strachey translations (Freud, 1953-1974), who used everyday language in his work instead of trying to establish a new technical vocabulary for an esoteric new discipline. However, with the new Penguin editions thus far, fresh Freud is no longer lost in translation. The Standard Edition was created importantly to create an authoritative international trademark and was made more natural "scientific" in appearance. The fresh translations show a Freud in tune with Karl Popper's (1976) approach in his later work that viewed science as essentially problem solving. The example of "Mourning and Melancholia" (Freud, 1917/ 1964, 1917/1981, 1917/2005) is discussed as an exercise in exploration, conjectures, criticism, construct formation, and problem solving. Translation issues are discussed. Instead of being a particular trade mark, the very fact of there being new and different translations opens Freud's works to further questioning about their meanings and intents in the marketplace of ideas and practices

Kristeva and an archaeology of sources and translation

Pinder examines Julia Kristeva's essay "Stabat Mater," a focus of psychoanalytical, historical and cultural concepts which require very careful consideration. In order to illustrate the complexity of these linguistic and cultural interrelationships, she looks first at Kristeva's own original essay in French to see what light her method of construction may throw on her particular ideas, then examines some translations of the essay into English to see if there is anything lost by attrition or gained by accretion.

Rethinking the English pedagogy at Hope College in Taiwan

For many years Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and an English-Only approach to English teaching have characterised pedagogy at Hope College in Taiwan.

These approaches have had a significant impact on the ways in which students understand their cultural identities and develop competency in both oral and written English. Sometimes, in the EFL context in Taiwan, an English-Only policy can impact on students' learning in two ways. Firstly, it may cause students to doubt the validity of their own culture in comparison to English speaking culture. Secondly it may lead to students' resisting English culture because of enhanced feelings of nationalism. Furthermore, sometimes, students may feel disturbed when learning English in an English-Only class because the lack of cognitive understanding usually makes them misunderstand the content expressed in the target language (English) and misuse the target language.

In this paper I consider the need to reintroduce elements of the Grammar-Translation method to an EFL context and suggest an integrative pedagogy in which native English-speaking teachers, applying English only in the classes, focus on teaching listening and speaking to directly foster students' English linguistic competence, while local English teachers, applying both English and Chinese in the classes, focus on teaching reading and writing to foster students' in-depth cognitive ability of English culture and suitable written expression. The purpose of such integrative pedagogy is to keep students' cultural identity as well as advance students' understanding and correct use in English.

Translating Laurence Louppe

In the light of the increasing corporatisation of academic publishing in English, this paper draws on my experience of translating French critic Laurence Louppe's Poétique de la danse contemporaine (Brussels, 1997) into English (Dance Books, forthcoming 2010) to reflect cross-linguistically upon the need to maintain a diversity of linguistic perspectives and resources in dance commentary. Just as the dancer and the choreographer use each other to learn from the “translation” that their respective bodies and moves represent for each other, so the process of textual translation can provoke a more acute awareness of issues regarding the relationship between language and the complexities of dance experiences. Louppe emphasises that one of the insights of contemporary dance has been that “the body” is not simply a support for verbal language but can have its own, different, communicative modalities. In the light of this, Louppe's own literary poetics seeks in return to mine the etymological layers of her language – and to activate its anthropological roots in sensuous existence. My article discusses the conceptual resources upon which Louppe draws, including those drawn from the modern dance heritage, her own philosophical erudition and literary poetics, and the resources specific to the French language (as these emerge through my perspective from within English) in order to articulate issues of change, corporeality and mobility. This discussion is undertaken in relation to specific terminological and metaphorical examples and makes comparisons with the writings of Isadora Duncan.

Public and personal domains : professional standards for teachers of English in Australia

For many teachers the term ‘professional standards’ conjures up notions of benchmarks against which to measure their performance. This is to locate standards in a public domain that is external to individual teachers, defining their professional role largely in terms of their accountability to other stakeholders in education. The following article argues an alternative view of standards as mediating between public and personal domains. Those domains should remain distinct – indeed, sometimes they may exist in a productive tension – but for standards to have any purchase with the profession they must be personally meaningful. The author draws on both his experience in teaching graduate English students in the pre-service Diploma in Education course at Monash University and his research in a national project to develop subject specific standards for primary and secondary teachers of English. The project, Standards for Teachers of English Language and Literacy in Australia (STELLA), is federally funded and involves a consortium of universities, state government bodies and the two English teaching associations, whose members constitute the panels of teachers at the heart of the project.

Linguistic and psychometric validation of the diabetes-specific quality-of-life scale in U. K. english for adults with type 1 diabetes

OBJECTIVE To develop a linguistically and psychometrically validated U.K. English (U.K./Ireland) version of the Diabetes-Specific Quality-of-Life Scale (DSQOLS) for adults with type 1 diabetes.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We conducted independent forward and backward translation of the validated German DSQOLS. An iterative interview study with health professionals (n = 3) and adults with type 1 diabetes (n = 8) established linguistic validity. The DSQOLS was included in three Dose Adjustment for Normal Eating (DAFNE) studies (total N = 1,071). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was undertaken to examine questionnaire structure. Concurrent and discriminant validity, internal consistency, and reliability were assessed.

RESULTS EFA indicated a six-factor structure for the DSQOLS (social aspects, fear of hypoglycemia, dietary restrictions, physical complaints, anxiety about the future, and daily hassles). High internal consistency reliability was found for these factors and the weighted treatment satisfaction scale (α = 0.85–0.94). All subscales were moderately, positively correlated with the Audit of Diabetes-Dependent Quality-of-Life (ADDQoL) measure, demonstrating evidence of concurrent validity. Lower DSQOLS subscale scores [indicating impaired quality of life (QoL)] were associated with the presence of diabetes-related complications.

CONCLUSIONS The DSQOLS captures the impact of detailed aspects of modern type 1 diabetes management (e.g., carbohydrate counting and flexible insulin dose adjustment) that are now routine in many parts of the U.K. and Ireland. The U.K. English version of the DSQOLS offers a valuable tool for assessing the impact of treatment approaches on QoL in adults with type 1 diabetes.

Cross-cultural adaption of the Health Educaiton Impact Questionnaire: experimental study showed expert committee, not back-translation, added value

Objectives
To assess the contribution of back-translation and expert committee to the content and psychometric properties of a translated multidimensional questionnaire.

Study Design and Setting
Recommendations for questionnaire translation include back-translation and expert committee, but their contribution to measurement properties is unknown. Four English to French translations of the Health Education Impact Questionnaire were generated with and without committee or back-translation. Face validity, acceptability, and structural properties were compared after random assignment to people with rheumatoid arthritis (N = 1,168), chronic renal failure (N = 2,368), and diabetes (N = 538). For face validity, 15 bilingual people compared translations quality with the original. Psychometric properties were examined using confirmatory factor analysis (metric and scalar invariance) and item response theory.

Results
Qualitatively, there were five types of translation errors: style, intensity, frequency/time frame, breadth, and meaning. Bilingual assessors ranked best the translations with committee (P = 0.0026). All translations had good structural properties (root mean square error of approximation <0.05; comparative fit index [CFI], ≥0.899; and Tucker–Lewis index, ≥0.889). Full measurement invariance was observed between translations (ΔCFI ≤ 0.01) with metric invariance between translations and original (lowest ΔCFI = 0.022 between fully constrained models and models with free intercepts). Item characteristic curve analyses revealed no significant differences.

Conclusion
This is the first experimental evidence that back-translation has moderate impact, whereas expert committee helps to ensure accurate content.