Is there sound if a tree falls in the
forest and there is no one there to hear it?
Do colors exist if there are no eyes to perceive them? Of course there are sound waves, but many
would argue that the sound is not the wave, but rather the effect those waves
have on an ear. Likewise, certain
frequencies of light waves determine color only once they come in contact with
an eye. I wonder if the same could be
said for a book, or perhaps more precisely for literature. If a book is written but never read, is it
literature? Is it the reader who
breathes life into a piece of writing? I
would argue that this is exactly what happens.
Despite my somewhat sarcastic take on
International Days in my Days’d and
Confused post, World Book Day might be the most apropos time for this blog
to dedicate some time and thought to reading and writing. After all, I began this blog with the purpose
of encouraging my students to read more and take the step (or gigantic leap) to
start writing. Literature, and art in
general, is sometimes described as being a conversation. When I first heard this as a child at school,
I didn’t really understand how or why my teacher talked about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or In Cold Blood as being part of a
conversation. Of course, when he claimed
that they were part of the same, ongoing, never-ending conversation, I thought
he had finally gone certifiably bonkers.
When he added that we could get in on the conversation, I was expecting
the men in white robes to come bursting through the door with a straight jacket
at any minute. Now, it is hard for me to
imagine why I didn’t grasp the idea right away.
Everything that has been written is a response to what had been written
before and an antecedent to what will be written after. The most exhilarating part is that by
allowing ourselves to experience and share what we read, we become participants
in the conversation.
Considering that I am an English
teacher in Spain, one of my goals is to get non-native English speakers to plunge
into the conversation. I have been
teaching for over 20 years now, and in that time there have always been
students who were eager to partake in the conversation. However, by and large most students have been
reluctant to make the effort in the first place or they haven’t had what it
takes to stick with it after an initial burst of enthusiasm. So the question nagging at the back of my
mind has been how to make reading (in English) more accessible and more
appealing to the greatest number of students.
I’ve come up with a double-pronged argument: language learning and human
experience.
It has been shown that reading is an
effective way to improve one’s language skills.
There are many obvious reasons for this.
Attentive reading can increase and activate vocabulary, heighten
awareness of grammatical patterns and structures and improve writing
skills. Beyond these worthwhile
advantages, I believe that reading is one of the best motivators to keep us
learning. Recent studies have shown that
reading is a much more effective way to learn both vocabulary and grammar than
traditional studying based on memorizing.
Some of these studies have emphasized that grammar systems are extremely
complex – so complex, in fact, that there is no universal agreement among
grammarians as to a unified explanation.
At first glance this assertion would seem to be desperately demotivating
for the foreign language student. The
good news is that these same studies conclude that we tend to “absorb” grammar
through “comprehensible input”.
Basically, this is a student’s dream.
While you can’t expect information to get into your head through osmosis
when you sleep with your head on an English textbook, this means that
meaningful exposure to a language is a better way to learn than staring at
grammar rules for hours on end. Finally,
researchers contend that the best way to get comprehensible input is - you
guessed it - reading!
In the previous paragraph I have
tried to show you how reading can improve your English. What I would really love to see, though, is
you breathing enriching air into the corpus of literature in English. That doesn’t mean that you have to become a
literary genius. It just means that by reading, thinking, talking, feeling,
sharing and maybe even writing about what you have read you will add your own
experience to the universal conversation.
That’s pretty exciting.
I would also include socio-cultural
factors here. Reading can help us to
reflect on other points of view, different ways of doing things and contrasting
cultural perspectives. This, in turn,
can help us become more understanding human beings and potentially more
constructive, positive, tolerant citizens.
Literature can help us to gain a wider vision of the human
experience. Despite constant
technological developments that supposedly make us better connected, I often
notice that everyday life has a tendency to strap blinders on the sides of our
eyes. We lose sight of the big picture while we are focused on getting through
the day without forgetting to pick up your three-year-old from preschool. (Uh-oh)
So, to wrap things up, I would like
to urge all of you to pick up a book and read it. You’ll enjoy some, abhor others. You’ll laugh and cry and get frustrated. You’ll travel around the world and in someone
else’s dreams. You’ll smile and chuckle
and roll your eyes. Your heart will race
and your eyelids will grow heavy. You'll ponder new ideas and see the world in different ways. But, most of all,
you’ll get in on the conversation.
