Assignment 7

In this essay, I am going to discuss how the British Empire influenced British society and discuss how and why you as a teacher should use this topic in a teaching situation.

The British empire influence on the British society

The British Empire has largely influenced how British society is today. At the peak of it’s strength, the British Empire ruled more than 25 percent of the worlds land mass and a quarter of the world’s population. (Nagel, n.d.).  The British Empire also ruled most of the sea, its merchant marine and navy were supreme. Maybe the most famous route that was used by the British Empire was the Triangular trade. The trade route connected the West Coast of Africa, Caribbean and America. Amongst other uses, the trade route shipped slaves to work in the plantation sectors in America. The British slave trade ended in 1807, but the institution of slavery weren’t  abolished from the British Empire until 1833. (Mustad, 2012)

The brits had colonies in most of the world’s continents, and some of the countries under British rule was India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and many of the Caribbean nations. The British Empire was the world’s sole superpower if measured in political, economic and strategic reach. (Jackson, 2013).

Due to the British colonies, the English language has become a world language, around 400 million people in nine countries have English as their native tongue and 30 other countries have English as an official second language. English has also become a lingua franca all over the world, and it’s almost necessary to know the language to travel, do international business, aviation, diplomacy and to get an education all over the world. (Nagel, n.d.).   

The demise of the British Empire begun shortly after World War II, it was in this period of time the British nationality act of 1948 took place.  It made it possible for people who lived in the countries under the Commonwealth society to live and work in the UK. Commonwealth citizens were no longer subjected to Immigration laws. (MWUK). This started a huge immigration from countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the many Caribbean nations.  

According to Migration Watch UK the intake of migrants between January 1955 to June 1962 was about 472,000. Some of the reason behind the massive immigration after the empire dissolved was that Britain needed to rebuild their workforce after the WWII. Many also came to Britain for education. (Nagel, n.d.).  The immigration laws became stricter in the 70s but there were still a lot of immigration, now from Asia and Africa.  Moreover, from the 1980s to this day, the immigrants coming to the UK have been mostly from Eastern Europe, and refuges and Asylum seekers. (MWUK)  

There has always been migration to the UK, but this period is especially important because of the huge numbers of immigrants that came to the Nation. This part of the British history has made the UK to what it is today, a multicultural society. According to Mustad (2012) a Multicultural Nation consist of two or more cultures, so Britain is multicultural to say the least. The slave trade that went on during the British Empire era has influenced some of the less positive sides of the multicultural society in Britain. According to Mustad (2012) this era made racism well established In Britain at the time, something that sometimes is still is a problem in British society. The reason why children use English in school has also its background in the British Empire and this brings me to the next part of the assignment

British Empire as school topic.

In this part of the assignment, I will discuss why and how we should use this as a topic, and there are many reasons why we as teachers should use the British Empire as a topic in school.

First, I want to address the subject of immigration and racism. The situation in the world today concerning immigrants and refugees is not that different from then.  If the pupils learn the history of how people have immigrated from different part of the world, they might learn that bringing immigrants into their own country is not something that is new and dangerous, but something that other cultures have experienced and thrived under, but not whiteout its problems. By learning, what other cultures have experienced by dealing with the difficulties that can arise when a country becomes multicultural very fast, such as racism.  

Second we have language, I have experienced in my practice periods that there can be a lack of understanding from the pupils why they are supposed to learn the English language. In knowing why the English language has become a lingua franca might shed some light on why they are learning it. Also showing them that English is the single most useful language to learn that exists

The British empire good or evil?

First, the pupils would get some work sheets with facts about the British Empire. These facts include both negative and positive facts about the history of the Empire. The first assignment the pupils would get is to read these facts individually, and mark which facts they find good or bad. The facts would be something like this:

“Culture: British customs were seen to be forced on the people while their own local customs were ignored.” 

“Religion: People might argue that the Spread of Christianity prevented people following their own faiths such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam”

“English Language: The English language is almost universal and spoken throughout the world, which makes for good communication between nations.”

“Slave trade: The British Empire created a slave trade from Africa and Caribbean to America”

“Immigration: Britain opened its doors and received a huge amount of immigrants to work and study in their country.”     

When the Pupils have completed this task individually. They will work in pairs and discuss and defend why they think the facts are good or bad. Afterwards we will have a discussion together in the classroom about what the pupils think are good and bad about the British Empire. This method is called IGP (individual – group- plenary) Some of the competence aims that fits this way of working is: “read and understand different types of texts of varying length from different sources” and “express and give grounds for own opinions about familiar topics” (Utdanningsdirektoratet 2006)”

Sources:

Nagel, J-L. (n.d.) NDLA: The Legacy of an Empire. http://ndla.no/en/node/109145  Read 09.04.16

MWUK. A summary history of immigration to Britain. http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/6.1 Read 09.04.16  

Mustad, J. E., Rahbek, U., Sevaldsen, J., & Vadmand, O. (2012). Modern Britain: Developments in Contemporary British Society. Cappelen damm.

Jackson, Ashley (2013) The British Empire: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Utdanningsdirektoratet (n.d.) English subject curriculum. http://www.udir.no/kl06/eng1-03/Hele/Kompetansemaal/kompetansemal-etter-7.-arstrinn/?lplang=eng Read 09.04.16

Little Bee - Dual Narrative

In this post I'm going to do a dual narrative analysis of Little Bee and talk about how I would include multicultural perspectives in to my teaching. 

Dual narrative analysis 

Little Bee is a novel written by Chris Cleave, it is a story about a young Nigerian girl who flees to England after her village is ruined and her family is killed. For two years, she lives in an immigration detention center, before she and three other girls are let out. Little Bee only knows two people in England and sets out to find them.

Narrative perspective

“A Narrative text relates a sequence of events” (Gamble, 2013:69). It means that the narrative keeps the story going. Little Bee is written with a dual narrative perspective, which means that there are two narratives from the two main characters point of view. The story is told through two different people’s eyes, in this case Little Bee and Sarah.

Character description

Sarah is a 31 year old magazine editor from Surrey, England. She is married to Andrew and have a little boy named Charlie. From the outside world, her life seems good, perfect even, but she has experienced stuff that most people won’t ever experience.

Little Bee is a young Nigerian girl, she has spent two years in a British immigration detention center, and that is the start of the story. She has experienced a lot of trauma with her family being killed and her village burned down. Her sister was brutally murdered by the same people who ruined her village, Little Bee didn’t watch it, but she heard it and she heard her sister praying.

Narrative perspective in Little Bee

Little Bee’s narrative starts in the immigration detention center. She talks about the things she has experienced in the detention center, the people she have met and the things she have learned. She’s telling about what would happen if she told the girls back home what she had experienced, how they would react. Little Bee’s narrative is showing her growing up, and dealing with being alone. We get to see how she is constantly scared “the men” will take her and bring her back to Nigeria.

Sarah’s narrative it starts on the same day as her husband’s funeral. It’s written about her life and her son, she mentions what Andrew were doing before he ended his life, what mood he was in, what mood she was in. Her narrative is filled with the sadness she feels, and the struggles and confusion she has to why Little Bee has arrived.

Influencing the story

Using different narratives gives two sides to the story. You get thoughts from Little Bee and you get thoughts from Sarah. You always see different sides to the same story. By using dual narrative in the book, the writer shows us how and who the character is through their own eyes and through the other persons eyes. The story doesn’t portray a one-sided character in which we only see a person through their own eyes, but we get to see the person through someone else’s eyes as well i. e. “Happiness for Sarah was a long future where she could live the life of her choice.” (Cleave, C., 2010:180) Little Bee described how she understood a conversation she had with Sarah; this is the way Little Bee sees Sarah, this is they way she understands her. While reading the book it sometimes feels like the narrator knows the opposite character better than the character knows themselves.

For this book, that is about two very different people, I think using a dual narrative helps the story a lot. If you had only read the story from Sarah’s side, you wouldn’t have been able to see Little Bee and vice versa. It is something about being able to portray both characters in a way that is relatable. This book opens up for exactly that.

Multicultural perspectives in English teaching

Multicultural Norway

“Multiculturalism advocates policies which seek to accommodate the different identities, values, and practices of both dominant and non-dominant cultural groups in culturally diverse society” (Murphy, 2012:6).

We are moving on to a multicultural society. Norway is taking in Refuges, asylum seekers and immigrants; this is something that will affect the Norwegian schools. In the English textbooks and workbooks pupils use today, we often see England, America and Australia as representative countries for English, both in the English-speaking world and in cultural aspects, and usually those three are the only three mentioned in the textbooks. However, with the way Norway in growing and changing, learning about American or British culture is not enough.

Multicultural perspectives in English teaching

Why would I include multicultural perspectives?

Multicultural education a process to make sure every student have an equal chance for academic success. By including multicultural perspectives from literature, we will give more children a chance to identify with their own world and different worlds. It will open doors where the teacher can teach about a variety of backgrounds and cultures. Multicultural perspectives in a Norwegian school that usually have a monoculture perspective will possible make the pupils more aware of themselves and others. Multicultural books is a way of teaching differences without the long, ongoing lectures about cultural differences.

How would I include multicultural perspectives?

Books, movies and music is sort of an international language. You find it everywhere. Every country have their music, most cultures or countries are represented in movies, and you can find stories everywhere.

If there is one thing that is spread around the world is music, with music comes both books and movies. Using music from different cultures can aspire pupils to want to learn more about a culture. There are so many different genre and sounds when it comes to music and every culture have something of their own. It is the same with movies. Disney has a collection of different movies from different parts of the world that could all be used in a teaching exercise.

Books (For this next part, I will include a full list of source at the bottom of the post.)

“Little Roja Riding Hood” written by Susan Middleton Elya. It is sort of a retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood”. Children knows the story, they know the concept of the story, this version will be easy to identify with.

“Looking Like Me” by Walter Dean Myers. An African American boy sees himself in a mirror. The book is about finding one self.

“Uncle Peter’s Amazing Chinese Wedding” by Lenore Look. It is about a traditional Chinese wedding.

“Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children” by Sandra L. Pinkney

“The people Could Fly: American Black Folktales” by Virginia Hamilton

“Indian Shoes” by Cynthia Smith.

All the books are from different cultures. The three last books contains a variety of stories the pupils can read. Using books like these, helps build a setting or a grounding where the pupils can start their learning. I would use the books as an opening for figuring out more about a culture, maybe someone is from one of the cultures, then I could use that in the teaching. These books could open for discussion about cultural aspects and language. Some pupils might relate to them and others will learn from them.

I think my answer on how I would include multicultural perspectives in my teaching would be to go outside of the English textbooks and actually find books that include different cultures. Use it for everything it is worth.

 by Ann Karoline Jessen

Sources

Gamble, N. (2013). Exploring Children`s Literature; Reading with Pleasure and Purpose. New Dehli: SAGE Publications.

Murphy, M. (2012) In defense of multiculturalism. In Multiculturalism A critical Introduction. Canada: Routledge Tylor and Francis Group.

Books picked from this page: http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/detailListBooks.asp?idBookLists=42

Elya, Susan Middleton. Little Roja Riding Hood. Illustrated by Susan Guevara. Putnam, 2014. 32 pages. Ages 4-8

Look, Lenore. Uncle Peter's Amazing Chinese Wedding. Illustrated by Yumi Heo. Anne Schwartz / Atheneum, 2006. 32 pages. Ages 3-7

Pinkney, Sandra L. Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children. Illustrated by Myles Pinkney. Scholastic, 2000. 28 pages. Ages 3 – 11

Hamilton, Virginia. The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales. Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. Knopf, 1985.

Smith, Cynthia Leitich. Indian Shoes. Illustrated by Jim Madsen. HarperCollins, 2002. 66 pages. Ages 6 – 9

Myers, Walter Dean. Looking Like Me. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. Egmont, 2009. 32 pages. Ages 5 – 9