Bridging the Language-Literature Gap: Introducing Literature Electronically to the Undergraduate Language Student

Bridging the Language-Literature Gap: Introducing Literature Electronically to the Undergraduate Language Student

Mary Ann Lyman-Hager
San Diego State University

Abstract:
Foreign language teaching practices have emphasized oral language instruction at the expense of written language instruction. In addition, many foreign language and literature departments have made a division between language studies and literary studies, a division in which the number of students who pursue literary studies are far less numerous than those who pursue language studies. Some educators now believe that it is time to reemphasize reading and literature in the profession. Computer-enhanced reading instruction holds considerable promise as a means to reintroduce "culturally dense" texts into the curriculum, perhaps earlier than originally possible in traditional approaches to teaching. Finally, the tracking capabilities of reading programs allow researchers to collect data that can shed light on students' use of reading strategies.

INTRODUCTION: PARADOXES IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Language teaching practices in the United States are in many ways paradoxical and contradictory.¹ Since the 1940s, language teaching in the United States has increasingly emphasized oral production and has distanced itself from grammar-translation methods that had dominated the profession in prior decades. Yet some, feeling we have strayed too far from literacy in our nearly exclusive emphasis on oral production skills, have called for a reemphasis on reading and writing. Multimedia and Internet tools for learning languages are becoming commonplace, but their use in the foreign language curriculum, especially in less commonly taught languages, is far from widespread. Finally, the National Standards movement, ushered in by the organizers from the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), calls for a holistic, interdisciplinary approach in language teaching. This approach would blend culture and content together in a rich learner-centered environment, yet few teachers are prepared to collaborate with others outside the discipline in creating these new approaches. Even within the discipline of foreign languages, the gap between language teaching and literature continues to widen.

Kramsch (1985) has referred to the transition between language and literacy study and has warned of the bimodal split of language departments into language versus literature factions. Student reluctance to study literature has been observed in North America by Muyskens (1993), who has written that "… while undergraduate language enrollments seem to be increasing, fewer students now choose to study second language literatures." This phenomena is not limited to North America, however. In Australia, Leopold (1985) has also noted that "as soon as a choice was available, students appeared to choose almost anything except literature."

L2 READING COMPREHENSION AND THE LITERACY GAP

Schulz (1982) has also referred to the major differences between undergraduate courses in language and those in literature. Most lower-level courses tend to emphasize communicative, linguistic-based tasks or daily "hearthstone" culture, balancing somewhat the four skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. These courses tend to emphasize oral language, while upper-level literature courses focus more intensely on reading and interpreting literary passages, often reflecting "high culture." Over 15 years ago, Schulz (1982) referred to the difficulties many students have in transitioning to advanced foreign language courses as the "literacy gap" and described the mismatch between students' abilities and course content. Suddenly, instructors expect a transition from the stage of painful word-by-word decoding of contrived written dialogs and narrations dealing with simple everyday events to comprehension of relatively lengthy literary texts containing highly abstract vocabulary, complex syntactical patterns, and sophisticated style and content which even an educated native speaker often cannot read without effort. (p. 43)

Intermediate-level students are required to read portions of authentic texts by the third semester of French undergraduate study, usually short passages of French literature. Unfortunately, this exposure to authentic texts comes as a shock to many students, who have been used to primarily oral-based class instruction. They often cannot understand the cultural frame of reference underlying the text because of its dissimilarity to their own (Bernhardt, 1990, 1991; Swaffar et al., 1991). So, in addition to the problems mentioned by Schulz, literary texts may have a high frequency of familiar words employed in unusual ways to create desired stylistic effects, and the cultural contexts described in target language literature tend to be unfamiliar to nonnative readers.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE READING COMPREHENSION

From reading research dating from the 1980s (Hudson, 1982; Carrell, 1983, 1984; Johnson, 1982), a general consensus exists that L2 reading comprehension results from the interaction of readers' use of bottom-up and top-down reading strategies. Many L1 studies also stress the importance of background, or world, knowledge enriching or guiding readers' understanding of specific text-bound features (Stanovich, 1980; Rumelhart, 1975, 1977).

Second language acquisition theorists view reading as a good source of comprehensible input (Krashen, 1984, 1991; Terrell, 1986; and Winitz, 1981). Because of the solitary nature of this skill, it is difficult to ascertain what psycholinguistic behaviors are occurring in the individual reader (Brumfit, 1981). Research on L1 reading (Zvetina, 1987) has been the primary focus of reading research to date, which has relied upon videotaped observations of readers, researchers' notations of readers' behaviors, and postreading interviews with learners. The computer offers a more efficient, less obtrusive manner of data gathering and, when used in conjunction with traditional data-gathering techniques, can yield new insights into foreign language reading comprehension.

Based on data from undergraduate foreign language student reading research, Bernhardt (1990) has posited six components of effective reading comprehension which relate to vocabulary acquisition: (a) word recognition, (b) phonemic/graphemic decoding, (c) syntactic feature recognition, (d) intratextual perception, (e) prior knowledge, and (f) metacognition. Background information has been shown to be critical to forming a correct schema of a text (Bernhardt, 1990, 1991; Feldman, 1990; Hewitt, 1990; Swaffar et al., 1991). Reading material that is culturally weighted, that is, related to specific in-depth knowledge of the culture, is more difficult than reading material which is unweighted (Feldman, 1990; Hewitt, 1990). In other words, although students may not intuitively understand the importance of background knowledge and linguistic knowledge, they need more than simple dictionary definitions to understand foreign language texts.²

RESEARCH ON FOREIGN LANGUAGE GLOSSING

Glosses figure prominently in most L2 reading materials. Their role in comprehension has been investigated in several studies, usually with a focus on two central questions: (a) whether glossing of L2 texts enhances comprehension and (b) whether glossing inhibits fluent L2 reading. Johnson's (1982) study of ESL readers indicated that glossing may interfere with global comprehension by focusing on the meaning of individual words. Pak (1986) in ESL and Jacobs and Dufon (1990) in Spanish also found no significant differences in learners' passage comprehension with or without glosses. In contrast, Davis (1989) and Luo (1993) found, in two separate studies, that glosses did improve the comprehension of L2 readers of French. Their results may have diverged from previous studies because of differences in the difficulty level and the authenticity of the passages read. Johnson and Pak used texts especially written for L2 readers, and Jacobs and Dufon asked subjects to read fairly simple newspaper articles. In contrast, Davis and Luo used literary passages designed for the target language population (not modified for L2 readers) with many low-frequency vocabulary items. These studies indicate that glosses may enhance readers' comprehension, if the text contains a high incidence of unknown words.

READING RESEARCH

Reading is a so-called "passive" skill—focusing on learners' comprehension rather than their production. It is, therefore, difficult to measure reading directly without the aid of specialized techniques to track learners while they are engaged in the act of reading. Further, reading is the key to success in upper-division undergraduate language programs, yet it remains the least favored of the four skills among intermediate language students  (Sieloff-Magnan, 1995). What do we know about the nature of foreign language reading in a technological environment? How can instructors best introduce foreign language students to reading strategies for authentic texts of increasing length and complexity? Can computers assist instructors in introducing these strategies to students tackling difficult texts for the first time?

Computers have the ability to generate information about learners while they are engaged in the act of reading, recording "complex processes accurately and unobtrusively" (Goodfellow & Laurillard, 1994). The problem lies in interpreting the mass of data generated by the computer program and weaving it into a comprehensive picture of second language acquisition and reading strategies. Information about the efficacy of electronic textual glossing has been gleaned from tracking data generated by the computerized reading program Une Vie de boy (Davis & Lyman-Hager, 1994a, 1994b) which provides computerized annotations or glosses for the first 1,754 words of Ferdinand Oyono's 1956 Cameroonian novel Une Vie de boy. (See the relevant passages of the novel in Appendix A.) This small computer program has generated a number of research studies at The Pennsylvania State University, most recently a doctoral study by Hayden (1997), An earlier study by Lyman-Hager, Davis, Burnett, and Chennault (1993) used a comprehensive case study, recall protocols, vocabulary tests, pretreatment student questionnaires, and software evaluation sheets. These data collection measures were combined with tracking data collected electronically by the computer to help understand the reactions of individual students selected from a large pool of students who had used the software. The study illustrated how these students made use of informational glosses and how they interpreted the text as a result of working with the electronic materials. What is of interest here is the interaction between text and student.

The students were enrolled in third semester French at The Pennsylvania State University and exhibited at least intermediate-low level language skills (as described in the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines). Their understanding of the underlying culture was closely interrelated to their reading proficiency, and their lack of vocabulary caused them to make incorrect assumptions about the meaning of the text. The Oyono text was situated in the (1930s) colonial period in the French-speaking country of Cameroon. The text describes the reaction of a young boy, Toundi, to his French colonizers. This first chapter describes his relations with his family and then with the Catholic priest who takes him in after he runs away from his family. The text is divided into the following three critical incidents:

1) a fight among some schoolboys (including the protagonist, Toundi) for sugar cubes distributed by the priest just before their tribal ritual of initiation into manhood; 2) the conflict between Toundi and his father over the sugar cube incident and his subsequent exclusion from a family dinner feast (a partially decomposed porcupine); and

3) Toundi's arrival at Father Gilbert's house and his mother's attempt to bring him back home.

Clearly, the selected passages were not very user friendly for the target population of the third-semester American students. Nothing in their background had prepared them to understand the initiation ritual and the cultural conflict with Catholicism. The family dinner, the fight over the porcupine left in the trap a bit too long, and colonial practices of the French in a far-away African country were quite foreign to most of the students in the study. Culturally dense, even inaccessible, the passages could have easily challenged learners even in the third or fourth year of language study. To make the text perceptually salient and understandable, the creators of the computer program, then faculty members in the Department of French at The Pennsylvania State University, packed the accompanying glosses with definitions, cultural background information, pronunciation aids, character and concept maps, and pictures. They attempted to operationalize Bernhardt's theories of reading into the computerized version of the Oyono text. In addition, prereading questions were created to relate students' backgrounds and childhood experiences to the backdrop of the text. An eight-page computerized introductory section to the text additionally presented an explicit, systematic discussion of strategies to be used by novice readers of French literature. This introduction also set the context for the Oyono text and outlined the use of the various types of glosses available.

The following case study, taken from Lyman-Hager and Burnett (1999), illustrates the power of combining data from multiple sources to shed light on individual learners' responses to a text in a foreign language and on the highly individualized manner in which learners process information from the text. Recall protocols, questionnaires, student academic background data, tracking data, and other sources of data provided the researchers with extensive descriptions of the language learners. In this case, the learner, Sara, caught the major idea of the text but missed many important details. Other profiles, also discussed in Lyman-Hager and Burnett, show the effects of textual interpretation by learners who exclusively used bottom up processing strategies and who spun their own versions of the story, often proceeding from the misperception of a single word.

CONCLUSIONS

Quite a few computerized foreign language reading programs are currently available. None of the programs available at the time of the study, however, provided the opportunity to: (a) follow a specific theoretical model of reading comprehension in a second language, (b) record students' behaviors while they are reading on-line, and (c) offer the requisite cultural background necessary to understand the text—here, a unique African perspective on Francophone culture.

The computer-enhanced version of the chapter by Oyono afforded learners a complete story, which has aesthetic and pedagogical merits over the fragmented excerpts usually found in literary passages annotated for language learners. Further, in order to be accessible to beginning readers, the text had to include extensive annotations, which, if found on the printed page, might interfere with the flow of "natural" reading. Computerized annotations can be hidden from the view of readers until needed. This type of hypertextual reading may offer students a greater variety of glosses than could be presented in the print version, due to the computer's ability to hide and reveal information at the request of the individual reader. It remains to be seen whether this type of glossing will allow learners to process and store textual information more efficiently and whether the software will help activate appropriate text processing strategies. A recent study by Chun and Plass (1996), as well as a doctoral study by Karp (personal communication, 1988), make use of tracking data and may offer partial answers to these and other questions.

Can the results of university-based research on individual readers' reactions to computerized second language reading have relevance to establishing guidelines or best practices for the creation of educational materials tailored to meet the needs of all learners? By examining the profiles of individual readers, can we describe strategies that may be useful for readers to adopt? A 1991 study by Noblitt and Bland suggested that valuable insights into individual learning strategies used by foreign language readers could be obtained by electronically tracking what they actually do when interacting with computerized instructional materials. The case study described in this article analyzes the results of data gathered by tracking the learner with the assistance of the very technology used in the presentation of the material.

Clearly, new approaches and new materials will be needed to equip the global electronic schoolhouse of the second millennium. Great hope has been placed on the Internet and computers in general as providers of authentic materials and as mediators of unfamiliar cultural and linguistic materials. Certainly the cost of individualizing instruction and of integrating computers into the curriculum should be considered along with the short- and long-term influence of computer use on learning (see Woolfolk, 1990). We now have enough computers in educational settings to determine how, under what conditions, and to what degree computers can affect student learning (Bozeman & House, 1988). Although some believe that comparing computer-based learning with traditional learning is similar to comparing apples and golf balls, the need for accountability is great (Pogrow, 1988).

Technology is called upon to play an important role in this restructured school, particularly in the area of "authentic performance assessment in foreign language education" (Nielson & Hoffman, 1996). Foreign language reading in particular has been an area thought to be well suited to technological applications (Blake, 1992). The new restructured school envisioned by writers of the National Standards calls for increased attention to cultural literacy and to learner-centered instruction. Two of the five standards (Cultures and Comparisons) refer specifically to understanding and appreciating cultural differences.³ Increasingly, second language researchers and computer scientists are recognizing the value of hypertextual glosses and electronic reading which lead the reader to a contextualized interpretation of an authentic text (see Landow, 1990). Glosses relating to culturally "dense" readings provide insights about specific texts and cultures, which individual language teachers may not be able to provide, thus bridging the gap between language and literature and between the reader and the text. More research studies are needed to determine which gloss types are the most useful for which students under which learning circumstances. Meanwhile, with the emergence of E-Books (rocket books) and other "modern" approaches, faculty will have to enter into alliances with colleagues in other disciplines to create more sophisticated and appropriate approaches to electronic reading. At the very least, we should collaborate with our colleagues in literary studies. By adopting a team approach to software development, we might impact the quality and diversity of the authentic foreign language readings and be able to introduce them earlier into the foreign language course sequence. By working with colleagues in computer science and instructional technology, we might be able to invent educational approaches involving multimedia glosses in order to present those readings to an even larger reading public, such as general audiences interested in foreign culture and travel.