RECLAIMING HIDDEN VOICES by Cintia Tanoni

Reclaiming hidden voices from Sole Loutayf

INTERCULTURALISM IN THE EFL CLASS by Alejandra Quiroga

Interculturalism in the efl class from Sole Loutayf

Workshops: “Border voices” & “Playing with languages and poetry” Prof. Cecilia Saleme

WORKSHOP 1 “Border voices”

What Money? (Anonymous)

There was a fellow who knocked over a bank in Tucson and fled for the border with the FBI in hot pursuit. When he got to the border he wasn’t real interested in formalities and he got through real fast and kept on moving. The FBI had to stop and sacar their papeles to get permission to pursue a fleeing malefactor across the international boundaries. By the time they got across the border, the robber had disappeared. But the FBI always gets its man, and they got him this time, too. He was way up in the sierra in a little town called Bacadéhuachi.

A beautiful little place.

When they caught him, he didn’t have the money with him, and they didn’t speak any Spanish, and he didn’t speak any English. So they hired an interpreter. The FBI man said to the interpreter, “Tell him to tell us where he hid the money.”

The interpreter turned to the prisoner and said, “Dice el señor, ¿dónde está el dinero?”

And the prisoner replied, “¿Dinero? ¿Dinero? Pues, claro que había dinero, y debe de estar por alguna parte, pero no me acuerdo precisamente que donde está.”

The interpreter turned back to the head FBI man, and he said, “He’s forgotten where he hid the money.”

Entonces, the head FBI man sacó la pistolota, and he cocked it and he laid it up against the prisoner’s head and he said, “Tell him that if he doesn’t remember where he hid the money in two minutes, I’m going to blow his brains out.”

The interpreter turned to the prisoner and said, “Dice el señor que si no te acuerdas que donde está el dinero entre de dos minutos, te va a dar un balazo por la cabeza.”

And the prisoner said, “Pues, en este caso, está el dinero atrás de la casita de mi hermana. Es una casita blanca en esta mera calle, al lado izquierda de la calle, tres cuadras de distancia de aquí. Atrás de la casa, hay un árbol muy grande. Dos pasos al norte del árbol, hay una piedra blanca, y allí está enterrado el dinero.”

Whereupon the interpreter turned to the FBI man, removed his hat, and said, “He says he’s willing to die like a man.”

WORKSHOP 2: “Playing with languages and poetry”

1. Cultural awareness: shaping upon another poem.

“Sonrisas” by Pat Mora

I live in a doorway

between two rooms. I hear

quiet clicks, cups of black

coffee, click, click like facts

budgets, tenure, curriculum,

from careful women in crisp beige

suits, quick beige smiles

that seldom sneak into their eyes.

I peek

in the other room señoras

in faded dresses stir sweet

milk coffee, laughter whirls

with steam from fresh tamales

sh, sh, mucho ruido,

they scold one another,

press their lips, trap smiles

in their dark, Mexican eyes.

2. Writing bilingual poetry of your own: Bilingual poem model: Diamante/Diamond

Yo

Quién soy yo?

Soy la persona quien estará

Cuando nada más en el mundo te quedará

When nothing else in the world is left to you

I am the one who will be there

Who am I?

I

3. Poem in two voices/poema a dos voces:

“Border Crossing”

I approach the border

Me acerco a la frontera

Driving my new convertible

Escondido en un camión

Anticipating what awaits me

Anticipando lo que me espera

A relaxing vacation, cottage on the beach

Noches de miedo y abuso

Having a good time with friends and family           

Separado de amigos y familia

I chose to come here for my spring break

Quería venir aquí, pero no así

I have money in my pocket to spend on whatever I like

No tengo dinero

I will be coming back in a week or so.

No sé cuando volveré, tal vez nunca.

Interculturalism and Literature in the EFL Class - Prof. María Alejandra Quiroga

INTERCULTURALISM AND LITERATURE IN THE EFL CLASS

alequi2001@yahoo.com.ar

Interculturalism

The concept of Interculturalism is not new and it can be traced as far back as 1959. This concept refers to the support for cross-cultural dialogue and challenging self-segregation tendencies within cultures. It is based on the recognition of both, differences and similarities between cultures moving beyond the mere acceptance of the coexistence of different cultures in society. It promotes dialogue and interaction between cultures.

Interculturalism has arisen in response to criticisms of existing policies of multiculturalism which were developed in the 1960s and, while they may have been appropriate for that time, they have since failed to adapt to the current period of globalization and super diversity. In other words, these policies have failed to create inclusion of different cultures, instead, they have divided society by legitimizing segregated communities, which have isolated themselves and accentuated their specificity. This may have been due to the fact that Multiculturalism promotes the acceptance as well as respect of all the varied existing cultures in a society and at the same time stimulates the maintenance of cultural diversity. In this way, minority groups tend to isolate rather than interact.

In a world which is constantly experiencing cultural, political, economic and social changes, education plays a major role in promoting social cohesion and peaceful coexistence. Intercultural education has been implemented mainly in European countries which have received immigrants from places like India or Latin America, as well as in some American nations, such as the United States, where the Chicano population, to name onehas become an important Spanish-speaking minority. Within new school curricula, foreign languages as well as multicultural literature have a relevant role in the transmission of values related to the respect for and within multicultural communities.

In the EFL area, cultural elements have been generally seen as static and oversimplified. Teachers tend to reproduce stereotypes and prejudiced generalizations about different cultural groups, which are usually imposed by the dominant discourse of the Establishment and distributed by the mass media. Atkinson (1999, 626) holds that little attention has been paid to the notion of culture in EFL because this field has adopted a “received view” of culture characterized by a “geographically distinct” entity, “relatively unchanging and homogenous”, and it is considered as a system of rules that substantially determine individuals’ behavior. In consequence, Atkinson recognizes the importance of adopting a transformative and “non-standard” view of culture in the EFL area in which concepts of identity, hybridity, power, difference and resistance become essential to redefine the traditional view of culture.

Intercultural literature

Language learning goes beyond the ability to use the linguistic code to communicate. It is also an opportunity to attain critical cultural knowledge, to develop skills to deal with different cultural issues, and to create positive attitudes as well as to respect differences. As a cultural expression, literature not only contributes to the transformation of culture through time, but it can also help students to become critical intercultural individuals.

In view of exploring how language and culture can be enhanced in the EFL class, this paper aims at showing that one potential means for EFL learners to develop intercultural communicative competence at a critical level is analyzing different elements in multicultural literary texts.

Scholars such as Carter and Mc Rae (1996), McKay (2001) and Amer (2003) agree that teaching literature in the EFL class can contribute enormously to the learning process of students in two main points. First, through literature students can improve their language competence because literature is authentic language in use. Secondly, literature is a means through which students can acquire literary knowledge and reading and interpretative skills through the negotiation of multiple meanings. Literature can act as an agent to develop students’ intercultural awareness while at the same time it nurtures empathy for diversity as they understand cultures different from their own in time and space. In this sense, The Common European Framework of References to Languages (2001) advocates that an excellent way to promote Interculturalism in the EFL classroom is through aesthetic uses of the language, including the production, reception, interaction and mediation of oral or written literary language.

Using carefully selected literary texts in the EFL class, students have the possibility of learning not only a foreign language but they also learn about cultures in which the target language is spoken. Learners become aware of their own culture as well as of others existing around them. They work not only with the text but also with the analysis of historical and social intercultural background in which characters’ personalities or attitudes; changes and different situations can be understood. Students will be able to know, accept and interact with people from other cultures.

Chicano literature as intercultural EFL content

Taking into account its historical background, Chicano literature presents very interesting texts in which the intercultural aspect can be studied.

Chicano literature and more generally, Chicano identity is more usually dated to sometime after the Mexican-American war and the subsequent Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. In this treaty, Mexico ceded over half of its territory –now in the US Southwest- including California, Nevada, Utah and much of Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. In a stroke, hundreds of thousands of former Mexican citizens became US citizens. Ramón Saldivar, a literary critic, points out that unlike most ethnic immigrants in the United States; Mexican Americans became an ethnic minority through the direct conquest of their homelands. This change in legal status resulted in slow development of a unique culture and language that is not distinctly American or Mexican. “Mexican-American culture after 1848 developed in the social interstices between Mexican and American cultural spheres, making that new cultural life patently a product of both but also different in decisive ways from each,” writes in Chicano Narrative (1990). By 1900, according to critic Ramon Paredes, “Mexican-American literature had emerged as a distinctive part of the literary culture of the United States” (1995). Its origins were Spanish and Mexican, its language, mainly Spanish and its religious sensibility Catholic. In other words, despite its growing particularity, it remained within the orbit of Latin American letters and oral tradition. Given the proximity to Mexico in border cities like El Paso, Texas, a matter of nothing more than the width of the Rio Grande, Mexican-Americans could maintain ties to the homelands with relative ease and frequently travelled back and forth across the border, invigorating both cultures.

Chicano literature tends to focus on themes of identity, discrimination, culture and history, with an emphasis on validating the Mexican American experience of Chicano culture in the United States.  It is often associated with the social and cultural claims of the Chicano movement. It is a vehicle through which Chicanos express and represent themselves, and also often a voice of social critic and protest. This kind of literature is a good choice to work in class; analyzing the Chicano’s situation and making students sympathize and start interacting with minority groups.

Other important themes include the experience of migration and the situation of living between two languages. Chicano literature may be written in either English or Spanish, or even a combination of both: Spanglish. Politically, too, Chicano culture has been focused on the question of the border, and the ways in which Chicanos straddle or cross that border.

Rolando Hinojosa Smith

Romeo Rolando Hinojosa Smith was born in Mercedes, in Texas Lower Rio Grande Valley. His family traces its roots in the valley to 1748. His father fought in the Mexican Revolution while his mother, Anglo-Saxon in origin and fluent bilingual speaker, and the rest of the family lived north of the border; Spanish as well as English were spoken in the household.

Hinojosa has received many accolades, among them el Premio Quinto Sol (The Fifth Sun Prize, 1972) for the best novel, given by Quinto Sol Publications, a small press in Berkeley, California; the Casa de las Americas Prize in 1976, among others.

With a concise, experimental style marked by irony, satire, stark realism, and cutting wit, Hinojosa incorporates into his work various genres, including sketches, reportage, epistles, journals, poetry, and, broadly speaking, detective murder mysteries. He credits the interconnected Yaknapatawpha County novels, by the American modernist writer, William Faulkner, as major influences on his writing. He has published his fiction, non-fiction, and poetry primarily through Mexican American presses. Written in Spanish, English, and an often playful combination of both, the books in Hinojosa’s Klail City Death Trip Series (KCDTS) have not been published chronologically in the order of the events in the series.

Hinojosa’s first novel, the Spanish- language Estampas del Valle y otras obras (1973), published in English as The Valley (1983), introduces a host of Texas Mexicans inhabiting the fictional Belken County, in he Lower Rio Grande Valley. Some of these characters, in particular the cousins Jehu Malacara and Rafa Buenrostro, are developed in subsequent novels. In the Spanish-language Klail City y sus alrededores (1976), published in English as Klail City (1987), Jehu and Rafa’s lives develop, and a theme emerges that permeates the series: the historical conflict between Texas Anglos and Texas Mexicans over both, land and laws governing their lives.

Becky and her Friends (1990)

Becky and her Friends (1990), published in Spanish as Los amigos de Becky (1991), is one of the novels in Hinojosa's Klail City Death Trip Series.

In over two dozen journalistic-style interviews, various Belken County residents tell the story of Becky Escobar, who gradually asserts her independence after divorcing her husband. The characters are ‘interviewed’ by the listener throughout the novel and they narrate their own personal stories relating them with Becky and her family’s stories. Hinojosa uses multiple points of view to represent a society divided according to the different cultures co-existing in the south of the American territory. They represent Texan society where Anglo-Saxon land owners and bankers interact with Mexican people who are the middle class and a third group who are descendants from both the Anglo-Saxon and Mexican groups. Interculturalism in American Southern territory is made evident through the characters’ description of themselves and their lives and their perspective over Becky’slife.

Becky’s Friends in the EFL class.

Hinojosa’s Becky and her Friends is a good intercultural literature text to work with advanced level learners of English as a foreign language.

Some possible activities to make students become aware of the intercultural situation represented in the text would be:

· Pay attention tothe Spanish words included in the narratives. What do you think about the use of Spanish words as well as Spanish translation of some phrases?

…And landed here with those gachupín ideas, that ridiculously insolent Spanish su-pe-ri-o-ri-ty, la superioridad española…

…They were old Mexicans, mexicanos viejos…

· Analyze characters taking into account their origin (Anglo-Saxon or Mexican or a descendant from both) and the changes they introduce in Belken County society. Pay attention to the characters’ position within this society.

Piece work, a big job, big constructor-everyone gets respect. Viola’s not like some- like a lot, and raza, too- that only gives the big jobs to the Anglos- Klail Electric, Belken & Co- and the little jobs to us, as if we didn’t know as much as anyone. Bunch-a raza shits.

In this quotation, Isidro Peralta, Becky’s uncle and the electrician in Belken County, speaks about the fact that better jobs are always for the ‘Anglos’ while Mexican people are allowed to do only simpler jobs.

· Compare the characters’ narration of Becky’s life.

As an example, Becky’s mother and her friend are worth the analysis. Elvira Navarrete, Becky’s mother. She’s Mexican and her husband American. She is a very conservative woman who obliged her daughter to get married to Ira Escobar, a man she considers a ‘good man’ coming from a traditional family in the county. Of course, she is against her daughter’s divorce. Elvira feels this divorce is a kind of punishment God had sent her.

Viola Barragán, Elvira Navarrete’s friend. She is businesswoman, world traveller and resident of Mexico and India, among other places. She helps Becky after the divorce and they work together. Viola supports Becky with her decision of putting an end to her marriage even against Elvira’s ideas. She represents the Mexicans who have been influenced by the Anglos.

Conclusion

The use of intercultural literature in the EFL class may be an excellent tool to make students know about the use of a foreign language, it can also be a means to make students become aware of other cultures as well as their own.

This kind of activities can lead students to accept, understand ad interact with people from different cultures.

Bibliographical References

GOMEZ RODRIGUEZ, Luis Fernando (2013). Enhancing intercultural competence through U.S multicultural literature in the EFL classroom.

Interculturalidad en la Educación (2005). Ministerio de Educación de Perú. Lima, Perú.

Saldívar, Ramón (1990). Chicano Narrative: The Dialectics of Difference. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press.

STAVANS, Ilan (2011). The Norton Anthology Latino Literature. New York: Norton & Company.

Film "The Help": cherishing values (Prof. Mónica Díaz Romero)

Seminario “Multicultural Texts and Voices” UCASal. Junio 2014. Salta

 Profesora Ana Mónica Diaz Romero

   Facultad de Filosofía y Letras .UNT

FILM “THE HELP”: cherishing values

The importance of promoting/cherishing/fostering values?

♠ Divorce with the other and utilitarianism brought terrible social, political, familial and educational consequences. (Sergio Sinay, El apagón moral, 2013)

♠ Today´s referential “values”: intolerance, materialism, egocentrism, indifference, violence, manipulation of conscience, information, thoughts, not recognition of the others´ value, cruelty, predation of our environment, among others.

♠ What values:  the least effort made, not acquiring compromises at all.Everything has to be satisfied right now.

♠ Values bother, harm, exceed, values are a burden, more than enough.

♠The present is a time of indifference, omnipotence and insensibility

Cherishing values (Sergio Sinay, 2013)

♠ Values become important only if an other exists

♠ We are honest, sincere, humble, respectful, thankful, solicitous, companionate, receptive, trustful only if that other exists

♠ Values are lost when the other disappears from our existential scenery.

 VALUES

♠Values are not taught, they should be lived permanently

♠What we can give others to help them walk their own path is be an example

♠an example of what we are, moral agents(Psychiatrist Victor Frankl, 1970)

♠values should be lived and honored

♠values should be a certainty not a hypothesis

THE OTHER

♠ sets our limits

♠ should be valued as an alter ego

♠ help usconstruct our ownidentity

♠ in contrast with him our ego is built

♠ in confrontation with the other …. the self is provided with a unique identity, his own identity…” (Mead,1976.p.196)

DEFINITIONS: 

VALUES

  

1-     Business Dictionary.com

Important and lasting beliefs or ideals shared by the members of a culture about what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable. Values have major influence on a person's behavior and attitude and serve as broad guidelines in all situations. Some common business values are fairness, innovation and community involvement.

Read more: 

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/values.html#ixzz32CW9oFVz

2- http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/value

(values) Principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life:they internalize their parents' rules and values

SYNONYMS

principles, moral principles, ethics, moral code, morals, moral values, standards, moral standards, code of behaviour, rules of conduct, standards of behaviour

 3- Thesaurus Legend:  Synonyms - Related Words - Antonyms

plural nouns

principles, morals, ethics, mores, standards of behaviour, code of behaviour, (moral) standards a return to traditional family values

FILM “THE HELP”: cherishing values

The main general objectives are:

1-To help students develop the necessary skills to locate and organize information about a specific target culture.

2-To stimulate the students’ intellectual curiosity about a target culture.

3- To encourage empathy towards OTHERS.

4- To help students think critically, express their own points of views and develop reflexive thinking.

5- To give students the opportunity to compare critically their own cultural identity with a different one.

6- To make students reflect upon values and positive attitudes towards OTHERS.

The goal of this project is:

·         To facilitate discussion about the importance of different values

·         To enhance awareness about how important it is to respect and valueothers

·         To enhance reflection on the importance of promoting values

·         To make up students’ minds about the importance of putting into practice some underestimated values

The activities proposed are:

 a- Watching some scenes of the film THE HELP by Tate Taylor.

b- Working on different exercises about the scenes watched.

c- Discussing,in pairs or small groups, the different valuesinstilled through the film.

d- Discussing, as a whole group, the necessity of cherishing values.

e- Drawing conclusions on how important it is to preserve values

Critical thinking

♦It is our responsibility, as teachers, (specially as university teachers who are teaching teachers-to-be) to promote the necessary conditions for the students to acquire a critical thinking and firm convictions and not to adhere blindly to foreign ideas or theories.

♦Weshould help generate generations of free-thinkers, social beings that interact in a particularly conflicted social, cultural and historical context.                 

Logical, reflexive and critical thinking

♦Teaching how to think is no doubt one of the most important objectives proposed by The Basic Educations of the Federal law.

♦   Thinking as a complex capacity and as such we should emphasized in each area of our curricula the necessary strategies to help develop the reflexive thinking closely connected with the topics taught.

♦  While intending to develop strategies to “learn how to think”, we should be in favour of teaching the strategies of thinking as part of the subject syllabus which should include an implicit objective of outmost importance reflecting the benefits we can bring upon the thinking abilities.

Teaching how to think

♦  Teaching how to think implies preparing the students to become future adults able to take well-thought decisions based upon a critical and reflexive attitude.

♦The clue will be to help students view things from different perspectives, ready to accept and value other view points and specially to respect them if they do not coincide with them.

How to help our students develop critical thinking

                To create in our classrooms the perfect atmosphere to develop this critical thinking, teachers may take into account the following tips:

·        If we happen to have the opportunity we should take advantage and try to explain and show students the different ways to take decisions.

·         Make students aware of their own responsibility while taking a decision and of the other options they may have.

·        Make students conscious of the importance of the selection of a future career thinking carefully before taking a decision.

·        Plan different interactive activities so as to help students to relate their knowledge with new contexts.

·        It is important for teachers a) to be explicit and clear about  the proposals they are developing and b) to explain clearly what they are doing and why.

·        To work closely with other teachers is really advantageous. We teachers  can plan  lessons and activities together, this brings lots of benefits.

·        The teacher staff should try to use thinking dimensions as bridges among the different subjects taught.

It is advisable for teachers to begin with a simple proposal. We should concentrate on a thinking dimension that should be close to the objective we aim at. We should also plan how all this will be put into practice.

Conclusion

Teachers should:

♦ put in practice favorable strategies to achieve an autonomous learning.

♦ help students develop particular learning strategies (cognitive styles) to approach contents and to develop learning abilities, related to how we learn (metacognitive strategies).

♦ respect students’ interests, needs, learning pace.

♦ enhance the development of abilities that will help students acquire, dominate and make use of strategies that will eventually guide them to an “internal process of permanent development consciously acquired” (Rueda Ortiz,p8) 

Final consideration

“We speak of important values as tolerance, respect for others, solidarity, that are part of a permanent development assumed consciously and intentionally… such a flexible, creative, universal and kind human formation is not received passively… but it is constructed through an active experience with the world… making things is how we make ourselves.” (Rueda Ortiz,10)

BIBLOGRAPHY

BALAZS, Béla: (1978) El Film: evolución y esencia de un arte nuevo. Ediciones Cátedra, S.A. Barcelona.

BHABHA, Homi: (2002) El Lugar de la Cultura. Manantial. Bs.As.

CAMUÑAS, Juan: Sobre el inconsciente y el lenguaje: una introducción a Lacan. Ficha de cátedra “Psicoanálisis (Freud)”. Facultad de Psicología. UNT. 2001.

CHIMANDAAdichie: Discurso  'El peligro de una sola historia'. http://www.youtube.com

CLERC, Jeanne Marie: (1994) Compendio de Literatura Comparada. “La Literatura Comparada ante las imágenes modernas: cine, fotografía, televisión.” Siglo Veintiuno de España Editores,S.A. Madrid.

de LAURENTIS, Teresa: (1984) A Materialistanalysis of Women’soppression.Cinema. Londres.

de LAURENTIS, Teresa: (1985) Aethetic and Femenist Theory: Rethinking Women´s Cinema.Duke university Press.

HISTORIAS CRUZADAS/ The Help. Region Dreamworks Pictures. 2011.DVD 31140 

MELLINO, Miguel: (2008) La Crítica Poscolonial. Paidós. Espacios del Saber 68.Bs.As.

MONGIA, Padmini: (1996) Contemporary Postcolonial Theory, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”, Stuart  Hall, London, Arnold, a member of the Hodder Headline Group.

OXFORD COLLOCATIONS DICTIONARY.(2012)Oxford University Press.

PEÑA-ARDID, Cármen: (1992) Literatura y Cine: una aproximación comparativa. Ediciones Cátedra, S.A. Madrid

PÉREZ  de GIMENEZ, Myriam Claudia: (2003) Impacto en la Subjetividad, INSIL, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras,  Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Tucumán

PRATT, Mary Louise: (1997) Ojos Imperiales. Literatura de viajes y Transculturación, Universidad Nacional de Quilmas, Buenos Aires.

PULECIO MARIÑO, Enrique: (1989) El Cine: análisis y estética. Ministerio de Cultura. Colombia.

REVISTA NUEVA. Serie VIVIR LOS VALORES. Ejemplares de 22/9/13- 29/9/13- 6/10/13- 13/10/13- 20/10/13- 27/10/13- 3/11/13- 10/11/13- 17/11/13- 24/11/13- 1/12/13- Ejemplares 11/11/12 tema: Resiliencia. 14/7/13 tema: Bullying. 30/6/13 tema: Valores en Lideres Naturales. Editada por La Gaceta de Tucumán.

  Rueda Ortiz, Rocío.(1999) Hipertexto, ambientes de aprendizaje y formación. Universidad Pedagógica Nacional. Bs. As.

SAID, Eduard: (1990) Orientalismo, Madrid Libertarias, Prodhufi, S.A., Madrid.

SELDEN, Raman, Peter Widdowson, Peter Brooker: (1988) A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, The Harvester Publishing Group, Sussex.

SINAY, Sergio(2013)  El Apagón Moral.Editorial Paidós. Buenos Aires

SPIVAK, Gayatry: (1985) Europe and its others, The Rani of Simur in Francis Barker et al./eds,volumen 1, Essex, Colchester, University of Essex.

SPIVAK, Gayatry: (1990) ThePoscolonial Critic, Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues. Edited bySarahHarasym. 

SUGGESTED FILMS

→ Between Heaven and Earth (drama) Director: Oliver Stone

→ The Joy Luck Club (drama) Director: Wayne Wang

→Las aventuras de Sammy (animated film for children)

    Director: Ben Stassen

→Invictus (drama) Director: Clint Eastwood