Welcome to the the winter 2012 edition of TEACHING ENGLISH TODAY
We trust that you will find the articles that follow interesting, challenging and useful.
From the Editor
When I was in Standard 4 (the equivalent of Grade 6) at Muir College in Uitenahge, we had a new English teacher arrive in May. He was actually high-school trained, and set us a stinker of an exam paper..
‘Teach the books, touch the heart’
C. S. Lewis said, ‘We read to know that we are not alone.’ Lewis was absolutely not thinking about literacy in South Africa when he uttered that much-quoted line, but I have still found it comfortin
The status of English in a multilingual South Africa
This paper analyses language politics in South Africa in an attempt to understand what is happening in multilingual classrooms.
Two Yeats poems
The Wild Swans at Coole
It will perhaps be difficult for children to appreciate this poem fully. It shares the general sorrow that the most beautiful things cannot be kept; but most of all it expresses a personal sorrow at the poet’s loss of youth.
Dictionaries up for grabs!
In the last issue of TET, we included the following announcement: LONGMAN HAVE DONATED 10 DICTIONARIES TO READERS WHO SEND AN EMAIL TO THE EDITOR (DR MALCOLM VENTER, drv@worldonline.co.za) GIVING, IN NO MORE THAN 50 WORDS, A TIP ON HOW TO USE DICTIONARIES IN THE CLASSROOM.
Arthur Miller’s THE CRUCIBLE
I’ve decided to focus on three aspects of this play:
Why did Miller write The Crucible – the circumstances and reasons?
Three of the main themes in The Crucible.
Three of the main characters in The Crucible
“Pity like a naked new born babe” – the key speech in MACBETH
Many people are puzzled by Macbeth’s speech about “pity like a naked new born babe.” Even when they realize that the speech may have something to do with the Apocalypse, there are still difficulties with some of the details.
KING LEAR
All Shakespeare’s play are remarkable, but many would regard King Lear is perhaps the most remarkable of them all. An amazing amount of value – narrative and dramatic power, human knowledge and insight, sheer poetry – is packed into this play, which on the Elizabethan stage would have taken about three hours to perform.
Notable notices
Here are some interesting notices that could be used in teaching: