Masarykova univerzita

Pedagogická fakulta

Bakalářská práce

Brno 2014

Bc. Soňa Šamánková 2 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

MASARYK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature

Alistair Cooke: Letter from America

Bachelor Thesis

Brno 2014

Thesis Supervisor: Author: Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. Bc. Soňa Šamánková 3 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

Annotation

This thesis deals with the phenomenal BBC‟s series Letter from America by Alistair Cooke and attempts to prove their educational potential for both students and teachers of the English language. Moreover, it outlines their possible use as an authentic CLIL input in the lessons of Economics at secondary specialized schools. The initial underlying idea of this talk-show was to introduce American history and its socio-cultural issues to the British listeners of BBC in a wider context, and as such it can serve as a plentiful source with a natural and spontaneous tone providing an authentic material for the classroom employment.

Key words America, history, culture, Economics, education, CLIL

Anotace Tato práce se zabývá fenomenálním projektem stanice BBC s názvem Letter from America, jehož autorem byl Alistair Cooke, a snaží se prokázat jeho výukový potenciál pro studenty i učitele anglického jazyka. Dále pak nastiňuje možnosti jeho využití formou metody CLIL ve výuce Ekonomiky na středních odborných školách. Původní myšlenkou této talk-show bylo představit americkou historii a její společenské a kulturní problémy britským posluchačům BBC a díky tomu může sloužit také jako bohatý zdroj autentického materiálu, jenž může být využit při výuce jako zdroj skutečného jazyka s přirozeným a spontánním tónem.

Klíčová slova Amerika, historie, kultura, Ekonomika, vzdělávání, CLIL 4 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

Declaration

Hereby I declare that I have compiled this thesis on my own and all the sources of information used in the thesis are listed in the references.

Brno 17 April, 2014 …………………………

Bc. Soňa Šamánková 5 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank to my supervisor Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. for her valuable comments, inspiring and positive attitude. 6 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA Table of Contents

1. Introduction ………………………………………………………… 7 - 8

2. Life and Work of Alistair Cooke ………………………………… 9 - 12

3. Recurring Motifs ………………………………………………… 13 - 22

4. CLIL ……………………………………………………………… 23 - 26

5. Business and Economic Issues ………………………………….. 27 - 46

6. Conclusion ……………………………………………………….. 47 - 49

References …………………………………………………………….. 50 - 51

Abstract of Bachelor’s Thesis …………………………………………….. 52

7 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA 1 Introduction

This thesis deals with the phenomenal BBC‟s series Letter from America by Alistair Cooke and attempts to prove its educational potential for both students and teachers of the English language. Moreover, it outlines their possible use in the form of an authentic CLIL input in the lessons of Economics at secondary specialized schools. Even though this thesis is not specifically methodological, and is rooted in the fields of literature and culture studies, it partly overlaps into the area of pedagogy. The study approach is primarily based on a detailed analysis of the podcasts of Alistair Cooke‟s Letter from America in the BBC Radio 4 archives which will be then compared and verified using the printed version of Letters from America published under the title Letter from America in 2005 by Penguin Books. The thesis can be divided into two parts, the first one consisting of the basic information on Alistair Cooke‟s life, which is reflected in his speeches, and the analysis of the motifs recurring in them. The second part of this thesis then attempts to outline the possible practical application of Alistair Cooke‟s Letter from America in the lessons of English and Economics at secondary specialised schools by comparing the material obtained from the analysis on the underlying concept of the CLIL methodology to the Framework and School Educational Plan of the sample secondary specialised school and applying it on the textbook which is used in the lessons of Economics with an aim to prove the existence of intersection points. The business and economic topics are current and popular in education nowadays and also familiar to me as I acquired my first bachelor‟s degree in the field of English and Applied Economics at the Philosophical Faculty of Palacky University in Olomouc in 1999. Consequently, I would like to merge my business and methodological education and try to find some interesting economic issues in Letter from America and illustrate their educational potential in the form of proposed case studies which can be used in the lessons as an authentic CLIL input. Alistair Cooke was a legendary journalist who worked for the BBC for seventy years and was creating Letter from America for the time period of fifty-eight years which made it the longest broadcast radio programme in the world to be presented by a single person. The total number of his radio contributions amounts to 2869, i.e. the total length of 717 hours (Kreč, 2004). The initial underlying idea of this talk-show was to introduce American history and its socio-cultural issues to the British listeners of the BBC Radio 4 in a wider context, and as 8 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA such it can serve as a plentiful source providing an authentic material to assist learners in English language acquisition and also to introduce or enlighten particular parts of American culture to them. Its potential can even be employed for the further development of English teachers as a real-language source with a natural and spontaneous tone for their self-study and improvement. Apart from the socio-cultural topics there are many business and economic issues highlighted in Letter from America, which are discussed by Alistair Cooke taking an unusual point of view and introducing them in a wider social and cultural perspective. This unique approach could therefore enrich the lessons of Economics at secondary specialized school in the form of authentic CLIL input to provoke students to include the inherent cultural impacts of economics in grasping and discussing this subject. Moreover, the fact that Alistair Cooke in his Letter from America deals with the economic issues in the United States of America compared to Great Britain, sometimes, would hopefully lead to the increased cross-cultural awareness of the Czech students through assessing the particular case studies on the situation in these two countries and contrasting it to the reality of the Czech Republic. Another positive aspect advocating for the use of Letter from America would be the fact that they are freely available in the archives of the BBC Radio 4 on the Internet including their original scripts which can be downloaded at Boston University Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Centre. Alternatively, the 2005 Penguin edition of Letter from America can be used as a printed source. Although, the outstanding personality of Alistair Cooke is not very known in the Czech Republic, it definitely deserves our interest and his Letter from America contains high informational and educational potential which is yet to be revealed. The unique socio-cultural approach which Alistair Cooke employs throughout his broadcasts could be used to extend the scope of view of historical and also more current events in the United States of America and can even be applied universally to the more common topics of business and economics serving as a basis for their discussion.

9 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA 2 Life and Work of Alistair Cooke

Alistair Cooke can probably be best described with the words of Simon Jenkins which he uses in the introduction to the 2005 Penguin edition of the book named “Letter from America”, containing the most famous Alistair Cooke‟s broadcasts in a written form. Jenkins characterizes Alistair Cooke as “the classic Anglo-American” (p. xi). In Jenkins‟s view “he embodied the cultural and political bond that linked Britain and the United States during the long half century from the Second World War into the twenty-first century” (p. xi). Jenkins points out this important quality embodied in the personality of Alistair Cooke by quoting that “In periods, when the two countries seemed at risk of tearing apart from each other, he linked hands and held them tight (p. xii).” In his obituary Nick Higham again addressed the question of Alistair Cooke‟s nationality: Many Britons thought he was American, but to the Americans he was the quintessential Brit, the man who brought them the best of British television as presenter of Masterpiece Theatre. For his part, he explained, "I feel totally at home in both countries." He impressed both audiences with his high quality work. With his unquenchable curiosity, Alistair Cooke remained for decades the consummate broadcaster, an elegant writer and a man of enormous wit and charm who made sense of the American Century (par. 24, 25).

To find an explanation for these unique descriptions of Alistair Cooke‟s nationality and his important role in connecting the two nations sharing the same language and furthermore, explaining the underlying motifs of their behavior towards each other and the rest of the world, we need to explore his life story in some detail first. As quoted in Wikipedia, Alistair Cooke was born on 20 November 1908 in Salford, Lancashire, England. His father was a lay Methodist, while his mother was of Irish Protestant origin. His original name was Alfred but he changed it to Alistair at the age of 22. He received his education at Blackpool Grammar School and then won a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge where he gained an honour‟s degree in English. He was involved heavily in the arts, was the editor of literary magazine Granta and set up the Mummers at Cambridge, which was the first theatre group open to both sexes. Among his other art interests we can include music and mainly the jazz music which is the topic of many of his radio speeches. In one of the few sources on Cooke‟s life in Czech language by Jan Černý we can read about Cooke‟s media beginnings which were closely connected with film. Cooke boldly offered as only 24-years-old to the English daily The Observer a series of interviews with American movie stars without having anything actually negotiated in advance. Luckily, The 10 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

Observer agreed and the addressed stars as well and thus Alistair Cooke‟s Hollywood career had started successfully. He got the opportunity to talk to Charlie Chaplin, exchange his economic views with the great film director Ernst Lubitsch and enjoy the ice cream with Katharine Hepburn. He exploited all his experience fully later on when he started to work as a film-critique for BBC in 1934 (Černý, 2009). He was married twice, first to Ruth Emerson, a great-grandniece of Ralph Valdo Emerson, with whom he had a son, John Byrne Cooke, and then to Jane White Hawkes, a portrait painter and the widow of neurologist A. Whitfield Hawkes, the son of Albert W. Hawkes with whom he had a daughter, Susan Byrne Cooke. (“Alistair Cooke”, n.d.). According to Higham (2004), Alistair Cooke visited the United States for the first time in 1932, on a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship which took him to both Yale and Harvard universities. He returned to Britain to start working for the BBC as a film critic and, in 1935, he became a London correspondent for America's National Broadcasting Corporation. It was for NBC that he created a 15-minute talk reporting on life in Britain and targeted on American listeners. These talks were called “London Letter” and can be regarded as the underlying concept for the reverse project of American Letter (“Alistair Cooke”, n.d.). In 1937, Cooke moved to the United States and in December 1941 he became a US citizen. In 1938 Cooke started to broadcast a 15-minute talk on life in America for British listeners on BBC which was in fact a London Letter in reverse. This idea was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II in 1939. During WWII Cooke travelled through the United States and his observations were recorded in his manuscripts which were published under different titles in Britain (Alistair Cooke's American Journey: Life on the Home Front in the Second World War) and the United States (The American Home Front: 1941–1942) in 2006 (“Alistair Cooke”, n. d.). The first edition of American Letter, which was renamed to Letter from America three years later, was broadcast in March 1946. More than half a century later it has become the longest-running series in history to be presented by a single person (Higham, 2004). As Collin Webb quotes in the Editor‟s note to 2005 Penguin edition of Letter from America, the last letter, number 2869, was broadcast on 20 February 2004, just six weeks before Alistair Cooke died (p. xvii). There are many topics which Alistair Cooke covered in his broadcasts ranging from important personalities and events in American history, jazz music and blacks in America to the topics of sports and mainly his favourite golf. They will be explored in a greater detail in a separate chapter named recurring motifs. 11 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

Getting back to the life history of Alistair Cooke we can discover that in 1947, he became a foreign correspondent for the Manchester Guardian newspaper (later The Guardian), for which he wrote until 1972. According to Wikipedia this “was the first time he had been employed as a staff reporter; all his previous work had been freelance” (“Alistair Cooke”, n.d.). In 1973, a 13-part television series about the United States and its history America: A Personal History of the United States, was first broadcast in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and was followed by a book of the same title (“Alistair Cooke”, n. d.). This series was extremely successful and in his Obituary Higham claimed that: “He was never as comfortable on television as radio but, by the 1970s, his hugely successful television series America recounted his personal history of his adopted homeland and won international acclaim, two Emmy Awards and spawned a million-selling book.”(2004) Moreover, Cooke was awarded an honorary knighthood by the Queen Elizabeth II. for his "outstanding contribution to Anglo-American mutual understanding" in 1973 and a year later was asked to address the American Congress on its 200th anniversary, which is an ultimate recognition for a journalist (Higham, 2004). Throughout his long and successful career Alistair continued to consider himself mainly as a reporter, which can be illustrated by Figure 1 – a self-caricature. This picture is also used on the cover of the book “Letter from America” summarising some of his scripts in a written form.

Figure 1.Alistair Cooke, self-caricature by ac, pen and ink 1964. 12 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

Alistair Cooke announced his retirement at the age of 95 years, following the medical advice of his doctors. This meant that he had been broadcasting his phenomenal series Letter from America for the total amount of 58 years which was the longest running time of a speech radio show in the world (“Alistair Cooke”, n.d.). “Cooke died at midnight on 30 March 2004, at his home in New York City. He had been ill with heart disease, but died of lung cancer, which had spread to his bones. He was cremated, and his ashes were clandestinely scattered by his family in Central Park” (“Alistair Cooke”, n.d.). As a tribute to his life and career the Fulbright Alistair Cooke Award in Journalism was established. It supports students from the United Kingdom who want to study in the United States and vice versa. The summary of Alistair Cooke‟s work can be found in Table 1 – Alistair Cooke, list of important works, which I have created for the purposes of introducing his most notable creations.

Letters from America 1951 Rupert Hart-Davis, London

One Man's America 1952 Alfred A Knopf, New York

Talk about America: Letters from 1968; 1981 The Bodley Head; America 1951–1968 Penguin Books

Letter from America: The Early Years 1946–1968

Alistair Cooke's America 22 November 1973; 13 BBC Books, London; November 2003 Phoenix

The Americans: Fifty Talks on our Nov 1979 Alfred A Knopf, New Lives and Times 1969–1979 York

America Observed: The Newspaper 1988 Penguin Years of Alistair Cooke/selected and edited by Ronald A. Wells

Fun & Games with Alistair Cooke: 1996 On Sport and Other Amusements

Letter from America: (1946–2004) 2004; 2005 Allen Lane; Penguin Books

Table 1: Alistair Cooke, important works in his life. 13 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA 3 Recurring Motifs

There are many motifs recurring throughout Alistair Cooke‟s Letter from America which I tried to group under a few common headings as listed below. The first and to Alistair Cooke strongly familiar topic is immigration, e.g. in “The Immigrant Strain” of 6th May 1946 in which Cooke asserts that “it is a stigma for an American to talk with a foreign accent rather than with an American accent” (p. 5) and the children of the immigrants are trying to get rid of it as quickly as possible. Another view is taken by Cooke in “Letter to an Intending Immigrant” of 16th December 1949 in which he compares the immigration in the past to the situation after WWII and makes an assumption that “a century ago the adventure was materially harder on the people who made it, but psychologically not so tough” (p. 41). An almost unlikely situation is the motif of yet another speech in which Alistair Cooke remembers his meeting with a Russian cab driver in New York who actually decided to come to America because he had overheard Alistair Cooke‟s speech on a radio in Russia. The cab driver indicated Alistair Cooke‟s description of America, as a country offering freedom and opportunity for everyone in “Miss Much – No Regret” of 3rd January 1986, to be the main reason for his immigration in an attempt to ensure a better future for his two children. Finally, on the topic of immigration it is the letter named after the famous lines inscribed on the Statue of Liberty “Give me your tired, your poor …” of 25th June1993 which looks back at the history of immigration and enumerates the details of it in the first two decades of the twentieth century. At the beginning of this letter Cooke (2005) highlights that the immigrants coming to the United States and looking up in awe to the bosom of the colossal lady, very soon found out that the physical routine of this process “was not quite what a poor foundling might expect of a new, compassionate mother” (p. 359). Secondly, there are the portraits of American cities and sights, e.g. “Washington, DC” of 11th September 1949 describing how this town was built, or to be more specific made, because it is, in Cooke‟s words, “one of the few national capitals which was chosen as a plot of naked land and designed as a centre of government and built up brick by brick” (p. 25). San Francisco is the topic of the letter named “John McLaren‟s Folly” of 26th June 1966 in which Cooke points out that in this city “the first necessity of an automobile is flawless brakes” (p. 137) and narrates the story of the “Golden Gate Park” which was created by a Scotsman John McLaren – “a man with the single-mindedness of a mule” (p. 139). 14 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

New York, Alistair Cooke‟s American home city, is portrayed in the letter named “Mr Olmsted‟s Park” of 8th July 1977, including the vivid portrait of its famous Central Park that was built by Mr Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1850s “on empty, bosky ground way out of town” (p. 223). To finish the list of the big cites “Boston” of 11th March 1994 must not be forgotten with Cooke‟s discussion on the origin of its inhabitants and how the population of this city changed throughout the years, and thus again touches on the topic of immigration. Alistair Cooke describes this city with a traditional saying as “the home of the bean and the cod” (p. 369), and continues with questioning its truth value when it is a widely known fact that the cod are dying in the polluted ocean in this area. The list of memorable sights in the United States of America includes the changing colours of New England fall in “The Fall of New England” of 21st October 1949. In this letter Alistair Cooke explains that the actual reason for the fantastic colours is not poetic at all, but rather scientific, being caused by the sap blocked from the leaf and the lack of nitrogen in the soil (p. 34). Another colour mentioned is the blue of the grass in “The Road to Churchill Downs” of 10th May 1956 and Alistair Cooke admits that it is a kind of superstition and the grass in this area might not be actually blue, the fact which most of the inhabitants of this region do not argue about. Nevertheless, it still is the homeland for two glories of Kentucky: fine horses and bourbon whiskey (p. 87) and the homeland of the famous Kentucky Derby. The third common topic of Letter from America is the US history in political and social context, e.g. settling the West in “Roughing It” of 17th October 1948 in which Alistair Cooke accentuates that “most Americans, even rich ones, were brought up in a culture that never expected somebody else to do the rough work” (p. 17) and outlines the underlying concept of self-reliance which is extremely important for Americans even nowadays and its ideas can be found in many literal works. Alistair Cooke (2005) offers his personal memory of the Armistice of 1918 marking the end of the First World War in “Memories of 11 November” of 15th November 1985 when he was 9-years-old and copied the whole text on several pages of cartridge paper. He says that it was actually for the first time he had seen on their way home with his mum a single iced bun in the confectioner‟s window. He remembers that the cupcake represented for them at that time a thrilling symbol of the fact that they had come through. 15 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

The racial question of black population in USA is the topic of “The Court and the Negro” of 20th August 1954 discussing the Supreme Court‟s decision which asserted that the Constitution is colour-blind and the possible future consequences of this decision. Fear of the atom bomb is described by Alistair Cooke in “Getting Away from It All” of 11th September1953 where he highlights how the meaning of this phrase, which traditionally used to illustrate the common practice of getting away from the New York hot summer, has changed recently to talk about the threat of the atom bomb. The overall feeling of grief after the cruel death of John F. Kennedy is depicted in the letter named “The Assassination” of 24th November 1963 and Alistair Cooke notes that this occasion marked the end of the promising era which used to be called the Age of Kennedy. Another grim moment in US history, the war in Vietnam is discussed by Alistair Cooke in “Vietnam” of 24th March 1968 in which he tries to provide a closer look at its political background and blames Kennedy Inaugural to be the possible reason for it. The war in Vietnam is also the topic of “The End of the Affair” of 11th April 1975 in which Alistair Cooke tries to analyse its outcomes and reasons for it and reflects that “the United States has just suffered the most unmitigated defeat in its history” (p.207). An unforgettable personal memory of the assassination of Robert Kennedy which Alistair Cooke eye-witnessed is described in “A Bad Night in Los Angeles” of 9th June 1968 where Cooke recalls his feelings of shock, sickness and hollowness. In the same letter Alistair Cooke strictly refuses the concept of collective guilt which was commonly mentioned when talking about this horrible deed and emphasizes that it could represent a potential threat to the society. The policy of détente, which was the underlying reason for not informing the society about the existence of various scanning technologies on both the American and Soviet sides, is the motif in “The Spy That Came Down in the Cold” of 10th February 1978. The letter with an expressive title “Attempted Assassination of President Reagan” of 3rd April 1981 describes both this occasion and the following treatment of the President in Washington hospital by Dr O‟Leary who took for granted according to Cooke “the expectation that the press would want to know all the medical details and had a right to have them” (p. 260), thus marking the new approach of medical and other institutions to media and their right to obtain information. The Gulf War is the topic of the letter named “Fighting in What?” of 30th November 1990 in which Alistair Cooke speculates on the possible reasons for American soldiers taking part in this conflict. 16 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

The unpleasant memory of the WTC attack on 11 September 2001, a milestone in modern American history, is described in “America‟s Day of Terror” of 14th September 2001 and “America on Standby” of 21st September 2001. The social topic of drugs is the motif of the letter named “Has the World Gone to Pot?” of 17th April 1966 in which Alistair Cooke contemplates the warning of the director of the Food and Drug Administration on the danger of LSD-25 and contrasts it to marijuana which he depicts as quite harmless even compared to cigarettes belonging to the group of narcotics. Based on the findings of the scientists Cooke (2005) claims that marijuana “produces much the same sense of confident well-being and happy talk as a couple of dry martinis, which are not so far, thank God, banned from American life” (p. 133). Further on this topic Alistair Cooke discusses the details of the President Reagan‟s proposal for the national battle against drugs announced on national television reacting on an alarming fact that one high school pupil in five has tried cocaine and one in twenty or thirty is likely to become an addict in “The Drugs Blight” of 19th September 1986. Cooke criticizes this proposal and compares it to the passage of 18th Amendment that started the prohibition era at that time. He describes drugs as a form of pollution which threatens to overtake not only America, but other Western countries as well. Various contemporary events including the natural catastrophes, which are influencing the American society in their own particular way, are also among the motifs of Alistair Cooke‟s letters, e.g. Hurricane Gilbert in “Hurricanes” of 23rd December 1988 where Alistair Cooke expresses his idea that: “The main point about a hurricane is that it is not furious, fast and damaging wind moving like an army. It is shaped like a doughnut, a doughnut whirling anti- or counter clockwise at speeds above 73 miles per hour” (p. 319). The letter named “San Francisco Earthquake” of 20th October 1989 depicts the details of this catastrophe and its media coverage. As it includes information on Federal Emergency Management Agency, it will be discussed in chapter five of this thesis under the heading of non-profit organizations. Fourthly, it is the motif of US politics, presidents and presidential elections, which is slightly overlapping with the former topic of politics, e.g. the President Lyndon B. Johnson in “LBJ” first broadcast on 28th November 1965 presenting a look at the background of the newly elected president which might serve as an explanation of his controversial personality trying to fulfil his childhood ambition “of a poor farm boy to own his own farm and call it a ranch” (p. 129). 17 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

Alistair Cooke presents a few personal details from the life of American Presidents in the White House in “Making a Home of a House” of 26th January which was inspired by Ike Hoover‟s, the chief White House usher‟s, book of memories on the life of nine Presidents. In the letter named “The Presidential Ear” of 8th December 1978 Alistair Cooke mentions the differing musical tastes of American Presidents and points out the date of 5 December 1978 as a historical one - the first time when according to Cooke “an incumbent President of the United States took his seat at the opera” (p. 249). A rather unusual view of American Presidents and their health problems is taken in the letter named “The Old Rocking Chair” of 3rd May 1996 which presents Cooke‟s personal memory of President John F. Kennedy sitting on a rocking chair in the cockpit of the aircraft carrier ship, the USS Kitty Hawk, which helped him to get relief from the pain in his back. Cooke then continues this letter by discussing the various health problems of American Presidents and how their picture in the media was changing over time. The issue of President Reagan‟s age which has been widely discussed in the media three weeks before the Presidential election is presented under the title “Old Man Reagan” of 12th October 1984 in which Cooke remarks that “if he was elected, would within a month or so of his inauguration be the oldest President ever to have lived in the White House” (p. 268). Yet another letter on this topic enumerates interesting details of inauguration ceremonies of American Presidents throughout the history and how they can be influenced by the weather forecast under the title “Inaugurals – On and Off” of 25th January 1985. The author of many Presidential speeches of both Mr Reagan and Mr Bush is revealed in “Presidential Ghosts” of 23rd February 1990 and Miss Peggy Noonan is introduced to the public together with a more detailed look at this common practice. Cooke reveals that it is quite unusual today for the statesmen to prepare their own speeches and opens his letter by pointing out that President Havel of Czechoslovakia belongs among the few exceptions. The seat of American Presidents is presented in the “White House Style” of 6th November 1992 as well as the idea that living within the walls of the White House actually separates the Presidents from the everyday concerns of American citizens. Alistair Cooke returns back to the pure politics, which is nonetheless connected with the personality of President Nixon, and depicts the Watergate affair in “Silver Watergate” of 20th June 1997 stressing the crucial role of investigative reporters in it. Finally on the topic of politics, Cooke states his opinion on the affair of President Clinton and Miss Lewinsky in “The President Will Address the Nation” of 21st August 1998. 18 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

Cooke summarises the American politics from both the general and personal point of view and while revisiting the varied life histories of American Presidents, he pays attention to different moments than is typical for the political comments. He tends to present their more humane characteristics, thus creating much more attractive and colourful picture of them for the BBC listeners. Cooke is also interested in democracy and relationships among nations which form the fifth common group of topics, e.g. the relationship between America and Europe in “The European‟s America” of 23rd October 1952 in which he pays attention to the vast difference between the two continents deeply rooted in the contradictory point of view taken by the two nationalities summarising that Americans who have not been to Europe tend to imagine what is best about it, while Europeans who have not been to America tend to imagine what is worst. Moreover, in the letter “It‟s a Democracy, Isn‟t It?” of 15th June 1951 Alistair Cooke highlights the opposing attitude towards the concept of democracy between the Brits and Americans stating that in Britain, one of the minor duties of good citizenship is not to disturb the private life of other citizens, while in America it is the other way around – not to disturb other citizens who are enjoying their private life in public. Cooke‟s view of politics and its relative unimportance for the normal life of private citizens is presented in “Politics and the Human Animal” of 7th December 1956 in which Cooke reveals that “all the politicians and propagandists in the world working on three shifts a day cannot for ever impose their line on two people sitting alone in a room” (p. 92). National holidays and festivals also emerge among the topics of Letter from America and form a sixth group of its recurring motifs, e.g. Washington‟s Birthday traditionally celebrated throughout the whole country on 22nd February is discussed in the letter named “The Father” first broadcast on 24th February 1963 in which Alistair Cooke characterizes Washington as a personality “acceptable to everybody for at least one of the same reasons: we don‟t know too much about him, or what we have learned we have idealized, so every man can construct a Washington in the image he likes best” (p. 116). The letter named “The Fourth of July” of 2nd July 1982 compares the oldest of American national holidays commemorating the Declaration of Independence to the other holidays celebrated in the United States of America. Halloween in “Trick or Treat” of 4th November 1994 is depicted as originally the Irish secular festival that came into United States and conquered it successfully. 19 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

The vivid picture of Christmas is presented by Alistair Cooke in “Park Avenue‟s Colourful Christmas” of 24th December 1999 which contemplates further on the actual non-agreement of this secular festival with the First Amendment. Thanksgiving is the topic of the letter named “The Origin of the Continental Blow-out” of 24th November 2000 describing it as the first truly American festival which “sets more millions of Americans in a turmoil of transit, criss-crossing thousands of miles to join long- separated families at a feast of turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and pumpkin” (p.439). Among the various personalities mentioned in Letter from America, which represent the seventh group of motifs, can be found, e.g. “General Marshall‟ of 18th October 1959 whom Alistair Cooke describes as “of all the greatest figures, the least „colourful‟, the least impressive in a casual meeting and the least rewarding to the collector of anecdotes” (p. 97). Albert Einstein, the famous scientist, who wrote and sent together with other scientists the Nassau Point letter to President Roosevelt informing him of the possible threat of atom bomb, is the most notable figure in “The Letter from Long Island” of 4th August 1970. Charles Lindbergh, the hero undertaking the first single transatlantic flight from New York to Paris, is presented in “A Lonely Man” of 21st May 1967 in which Cooke comments that today we would hear about him every mile of the way, but at the time he had no radio, no radar, no sextant, only an instrument panel slightly less impressive than the dashboard of a modern car. Martin Luther King is described in “Martin Luther King – the Black Washington” of 23rd January 1987 in which Alistair Cooke mentions that his date of assassination has been designated by the Congress as a federal holiday, but is celebrated only in certain states. The list of personalities can be continued with the movie stars and people from the entertainment business, e.g. Groucho Marks, a movie star, in “Two for the Road” of 23rd December 1977, described by Cooke as a slap-happy anarchist with finicky, and funny, respect for the English language and loving its oddities and absurdities. “Fred Astaire” of 26th June 1987 is characterized in the Cooke‟s speech with the words of an American critic of film and jazz, Otis Ferguson: “whatever he may do in whatever picture he is in, has the beat, the swing, the debonair and damn your eyes violence of rhythm, all the gay contradiction and irresponsibility, of the best thing this country can contribute to musical history, which is – the best American jazz” (2005, p. 307). Charles Spencer Chaplin in “Chaplin – the Last Word” of 21st April 1989 where Alistair Cooke talks about his personal experience of the cooperation with this famous star and highlights that although it is possible to teach people to enjoy a composer, a painter, a writer, 20 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA there is absolutely no way that anyone can be persuaded to find someone funny whom they find “unfunny”. Cooke introduces Katharine Hepburn and her complicated way to success in “Meeting the Stars” of 4th July 2003 being a kind of social oddity among the other actors as she was coming from upper-middle-class New England background. To finish the list of personalities from the entertainment business, in a letter named “Charlie Addams” of 23rd January 2004, Cooke remembers the incomparable cartoonist and the author of the popular Addams Family cartoon which came alive in its television and movie version. Jazz music and famous jazz musicians belong among Alistair Cooke‟s favourite topics, e.g. Edward Kennedy Ellington in “The Duke” of 31st May 1974 in which AC remembers how he persuaded him to record a long rehearsal session with his band for the BBC; and Harry Lillis Crosby known as Bing in “Two for the Road” of 23rd December 1977, whom AC describes as the least exhibitionist celebrity he has ever known. The famous writers emerging in the Letters from America are Damon Runyon in “Damon Runyon‟s America” of 29th December 1946 - a man who, according to Cooke, by some trick of understanding or misunderstanding, seemed to a whole generation of Britons to be the most typical American writer of his day: tricky, racy, pungent, slick, amoral. Henry Louis Mencken, a newspaper writer in, “HLM: RIP” of 3rd February 1956 who gave Alistair Cooke a piece of valuable advice at the start of his career in the 1930s which was: “Never accept a free ticket from a theatre manager, a free ride from the chamber of commerce, or a favour from a politician” (p. 83). “Robert Frost” in the letter of the same name of 3rd February 1963, the famous poet, who in Cooke‟s words sometimes reads like a man with no poetical gift whatsoever, determined to slog his way through some simple fact of nature and discover, at all costs, some universal truth. Two blind writers, the British Aldous Huxley and American James Thurber are mentioned together in “Has the World Gone to Pot?” of 17th April 1966. Cooke remembers talking to Huxley about his experiments with lysergic acid to achieve higher sensibility, and Thurber‟s belief that writers can be actually handicapped by sight which constantly distracts them. Westbrook Pegler, an investigative journalist and humourist, in “Pegler” of 29th June 1969, who became rather controversial in his later life and criticised the American Presidents he had known, and Jerome Weidman, a popular novelist in “New Words for Objects New and Old” of 16th October 1998. 21 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

Ernest Miller Hemingway, the famous writer with a special descriptive gift, characteristic with plainness and simplicity is described in “Loneliness, Male Companionship and the Hunt” of 30th July 1999. Various sports and sports stars occur in Letter from America, e.g. baseball in “Beizbol” of 15th October 1961 in which Alistair Cooke tries to reveal the roots of the American national game which the Russians claimed in 1952 to have started in the Ukraine sometime in the Middle Ages. The findings of Russian researchers have inevitably led the Americans to conduct its American counterpart with surprising results. A memorable black sportsman “Joe Louis” of 20th March 1949 who according to Cooke “won the heavyweight championship, and for one night, in all the lurid dark-towns of America, the black man was king” (p. 19), thus making an important point in the fight of blacks for racial equality. James Reston, a famous American golf player of Scottish origin and Alistair Cooke‟s friend, is depicted in the letter named “Give Thanks, for What?” of 25th November 1972 and will be discussed in more detail in chapter five under the title the Standard of living. Yet another golf player, Robert Tyre Jones, the greatest amateur golfer is remembered in “Memory of a True Great” of 15th March 2002 marking the personal interest of Alistair Cooke in golf as one of his beloved hobbies. Stories about Alistair Cooke‟s family create the last group of recurring motifs presented in detail in this chapter, e.g. in “The Summer Bachelor” of 16th June 1950 in which he describes the once common habit of sending the family to a summer house in order to avoid the hot weather of the US continental mainland. As a result of this practice he used to be left alone in a deserted flat and was allowed to use only certain pieces of its equipment. Cooke remembers his visit to the Derby in the state of Kentucky in the Bluegrass Region with his 10-year-old daughter, who admired horses at that age a lot, in “The Road to Churchill Downs” of 10th May 1956. He talks about his son in the letter called “The Well-Dressed American, Man!” of 30th October 1966 in which he describes the new trend of universality among college boys in America and Europe in clothing and lifestyle resulting in surprising uniformity in both their looks and behaviour. Under the title “Christmas in Vermont” of 31st December 1976 Cooke portrays Christmas celebration in his daughter‟s house in Vermont with all the home-made meals and the unforgettable atmosphere of this festival and mentions again the motif of self-reliance. 22 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

Rounding off the range of personal topics Cooke informs how people live in his place in “A Letter from Long Island” of 18th August 1978 and offers a comprehensive list of its abundant fish, thus revealing another of his hobbies. Finally, in the letter named “Bringing Up Baby” of 2nd January 1981 Cooke returns to his daughter in Vermont and announces a surprising comeback of a pacifier, which seemed to have been forgotten and banned thirty years ago, when he sees it in his granddaughter‟s mouth. Alistair Cooke‟s Letters from America contain also a lot of business and economic issues, e.g. taxes, equal splitting of natural resources, e.g. water issue in California, pension scheme in US compared to Britain, the Depression, inflation figures in 1972, labour unions, racial question in employment, TV commercials, self-made men, the underlying oil issue in the Gulf war, or closing down of Woolworth‟s. These will be dealt with separately in chapter five of this thesis which proposes their use in the lessons of Economics at secondary specialised schools in the form of authentic CLIL input. The following chapter attempts to illustrate the topic of CLIL and outline reasons for combining Alistair Cooke‟s Letter from America and an Economics textbook.

23 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA 4 CLIL

The abbreviation CLIL stands for the Content and Language Integrated Learning and represents one of the types of bilingual education. The CLIL expression is relatively new and occurred for the first time in 1994, even though the bilingual education has been used for much longer time. For example the technical subjects used to be taught in Latin in the Czech lands in the past, and it is still common practice to use the Latin terminology in natural sciences nowadays. However, the CLIL method means, according to Hanušová and Vojtková (2011), education using the foreign language and with the foreign language, not teaching in the foreign language. The language thus becomes the instrument rather than the target. Using the mother tongue in part of the CLIL lesson is a common practice and the exact proportion for it has not been set, although some researches have proved that the minimum amount of the foreign language should be 25 per cent of the total educational time (Pavesi et al. 2001 in Hanušová and Vojtková 2011). A perfect knowledge of both the subject and the foreign language on teacher‟s side is also considered to be an advantage, but not a necessary condition for implementing CLIL. CLIL first emerged in the Czech Republic as a part of the state language politics in the Action programme for the years 2004 – 2006. According to the research undertaken by NIDV in 2008 were 6 per cent of Czech schools using CLIL, the most frequently used language being English and the most frequently integrated subjects being Mathematics and Information Technologies, Music and Arts. It was implemented mainly on the first level of Elementary Schools and at Secondary Schools, and partly on the second level of Elementary Schools. Systematic further education of the teachers in CLIL started only in 2010 under the projects of European social funds and the national project was led by the National Institute for Further Education (NIDV) together with the Research Pedagogical Institute (VÚP). CLIL is definitely an innovative approach in the otherwise quite rigid educational environment and as such it is worth noticing and implementing in the Czech educational system, as well. However, it would be wise to use the knowledge and experience gained by the other countries throughout the implementation of CLIL, as it can provide a lot of useful information on both the positives and negatives. There are a few articles focused on the individual aspects and problems of CLIL published in the International CLIL Research Journal which are relevant to the subject of this thesis whose main points are summarised below. 24 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

The positive points of CLIL include the fact that it presents the new information in a way which is attractive for the learner by combining the foreign language with subject content and as Ting (2010) asserts in its active approach to learning it conforms to the way the brain actually works. Yen-Ling Teresa Ting used to work as a medical school instructor and neurobiology researcher and currently works as an EFL CLIL-Science instructor at the University of Calabria in Italy. She combines these two areas of proficiency and advocates the CLIL as an ideal teaching method as it has the potential of combining foreign language competence with specific content. In the introduction to the article the author proposes that “CLIL automatically changes classroom dynamics: rather than downloading information onto passive learners, teachers guide learners towards deep-level understanding of concepts through interactive knowledge- construction processes. Such active learning processes are coherent with how the brain learns” (p. 3). Moreover, Ting (2010) states that, “unlike immersion bilingual education where content is learnt in a foreign language, with CLIL, content is learnt through a foreign language (Marsh, 2002; 2005), via the 50:50/Content: Language ratio which attends to both content-learning and foreign language-learning “(p. 12). She advocates CLIL as a new method in the traditional science education, which she describes as downloading facts and formulas on learners. She sees CLIL as an ideal method how to combine science and foreign language competence. Furthermore, CLIL can help to promote intercultural learning and enhance the cultural understanding (Sudhof, 2010) based on the content used in the educational process. This can be an added function to the traditional double focused approach enhancing it to a triple focused one. The teachers gain in the form of CLIL a powerful tool that can be used to promote the mutual understanding among different cultures. Julian Sudhof of the University of Duisburg in Germany considers CLIL classrooms to be an ideal place for intercultural learning and claims that “language can be viewed as the matrix through which people express, perceive and interpret the world around them” (p. 31). Thus we can say that foreign language learners enrich their cultural identity during the learning process and build the so called third culture. Learning language in authentic context and using real-world topics automatically promotes intercultural learning. According to Sudhof (2010): “Experiencing and understanding a foreign language in a content-based way opens the doors to intercultural learning processes” (p. 36). Sudhof considers intercultural communicative competence to be one of the challenges 25 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA for the education in the 21st century. CLIL is an opportunity for taking not only a double- focused but a triple-focused approach combining foreign language with subject content and intercultural learning. Among the negative points mentioned by Breidbach, Viebrock (2012) is the possible inefficiency of CLIL, the existence of underachievers who fall off the programme and the fact that it is used only for certain subjects in German schools. They also note that many of the studies carried out on the CLIL have focused only on the linguistic aspects and studied exclusively the language proficiency of the students. In their article Stephan Breidbach from the Humboldt University Berlin and Britta Viebrock from the Goethe University Frankfurt (Main) map the evolution of CLIL programs in German schools and the various research studies which have been conducted in this field. They pose some interesting questions on the past and future of this approach. According to their article CLIL in Germany started in the 1960s and it originally meant CLIL in French to promote the understanding between these two cultures. With the growing importance of English a number of English CLIL programs were introduced during the 1990s. CLIL in Germany is used predominantly in teaching History and Geography, and to a lesser extent in Social and Political studies. Unlike the other countries it is only rarely employed in the teaching of Mathematics. CLIL is often presented as a successful method of foreign language learning and its efficiency has been proved by Bredenbröker (2000) in Breidbach, Viebrock (2010) who found that “CLIL had a very positive influence on foreign language competence in general, which was most pronounced for reading comprehension and the ability to use elaborate strategies (such as tolerance of ambiguity, appropriate strategies of inference etc.)” (p. 7). There have been conducted numerous researches on the CLIL in Germany taking into account different points of view – linguistic accuracy, lexical scope and fluency, language awareness, subject matter literacy, problem solving activities, scientific literacy, teaching styles, intercultural learning, learner motivation, stakeholder research, underachievers and linguistic diversity in the classroom. The authors conclude that “after all, CLIL teaching is first and foremost concerned with good teaching: it has to face similar pedagogical challenges as those faced in mainstream programs and they add that many CLIL issues are by no means CLIL-specific” (p. 14). To conclude, when implementing CLIL not only the language, but the subject content should be considered as well. It should involve the close cooperation of the specialized teachers who will guarantee the inclusion of both, or even all three, parts of the education in 26 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA the CLIL lesson. Nevertheless, it contains many positive aspects which can enrich the education and lead to a more thorough understanding of the given subject. I believe that CLIL can be used in teaching Economics at Secondary Specialised Schools as is outlined in RVP. The lessons of Economics at these schools are according to RVP aimed at improving economic thinking of students, acquiring an understanding of the market economy, underlying principles of entrepreneurship and operation of a company. Students should also discuss the system of taxes and financial markets, national economics and European Union. Alistair Cooke often takes the view of an ordinary person in the street in his speeches and covers a wide range of the topics. Moreover, Letter from America offers incomparable continuity of glossing the US events from 1946 till 2004. For this reason Alistair Cooke‟s work would be applicable for teaching various topics like American festivals, important events in American history, sports and sport personalities, entertainment business, but also economics and entrepreneurship, and thus could be used as an authentic content input in the lessons of English and CLIL lessons of Economics at secondary specialised schools. An advantage of Alistair Cooke‟s texts and speeches is definitely the fact that the Czech translation is not available and therefore they would be new and interesting for the students. They also conform to the communication demand of CLIL as they deal with the subject matter naturally and authentically. The cognition of the topic using the CLIL method is naturally authentic because it is based on real input and genuine communication. Finally, the cultural aspect is included in the Alistair Cooke‟s texts introducing the United States of America to the British and possibly a worldwide audience and therefore offering a possibility of improved intercultural understanding.

27 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA 5 Business and Economic Issues

In this chapter I would like to discuss the business and economic issues presented in Letter from America as I believe they can be used in CLIL lessons at secondary specialised schools at which Economics is not taught as the main subject. In the form of cultural case studies they contain the unique potential to extend the knowledge and perception of the particular problems by students. Using Alistair Cooke‟s speeches in the lessons will teach students to approach problems from a wider perspective and understand not only the economics and business issues, but grasp also their social and historical context and their practical social impacts. Unfortunately, it is a commonly accepted idea in the Czech society that Economics is basically a scientific discipline, which should be pursued and commented on solely by experts in this field. However, Alistair Cooke presents it quite differently, as an inevitable part of our everyday lives, and in his letters he offers vivid pictures of Depression, analyses the fraud inherent in financial markets, contemplates on the US pension system and discusses the scarcity of natural resources which can possibly lead to an armed conflict in a way which is easily accessible even to a layman. He also reveals interesting business topics and offers examples of successful self-made men, comments on the TV commercials, and the inevitable changes on the market, which occur with the changing tastes and habits of the customers. This view of Economics would be thus possibly quite unique and revealing new opportunities to influence the thinking of Czech students. Moreover, according to the Bloom‟s taxonomy, employing the principles of synthesis and analysis in the proposed case studies can result in a more thorough comprehension of business and economic issues. Students should be able to understand Alistair Cooke‟s speeches as they are getting ready for their final exams in English and thus their knowledge should be at B1/ B2 level according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. If still any problems with comprehension occur, the listening can be accompanied by a tape-script, or the problematic passages can be analysed in their lessons of English in advance. The suggested case studies could be used after presenting the main concepts of the given topic as a revision tool, which would extend the knowledge of the students, or alternatively in the introductory phase to open a discussion on the topic and enlighten its main ideas depending on the teachers‟ preferences. The main underlying idea is that the listening will serve as a basis for the class discussion. 28 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

To find the connections between Alistair Cooke‟s speeches and the lessons of Economics at secondary specialised schools I used the example of the Secondary Pedagogical School in Kroměříž. They have kindly enabled me to study their School Educational Plan (ŠVP) and the textbook they are using in the lessons of Economics, which are taught in the fourth grade (i.e. the last year of their studies at this school) as a part of the subject of Civil and Social Studies. Students can also choose the subject of Civil and Social Studies to become a part of their Final Exam. The School Educational Plan for the Civil and Social Studies is divided into six main areas which are named: The Fundamentals of Market Economy; Entrepreneurship; Company, its assets and management; Wage and Social Security systems; The Taxation System and Financial Markets; and The National Economy and European Union. The textbook they are using in the lessons has the title “Economics” and the subtitle “Economic and Financial Literacy for Secondary Schools” by Petr Klínský, Otto Münch and Danuše Chromá, published by EDUKO in 2012. The authors of the textbook are real experts in this field and have tried to summarize in one publication the basic economic principles which are included in the Framework Educational Programs (RVP), the Standard of Financial Literacy and the Final Exam Catalogue for Civil and Social studies base in the educational area of the Man and Economics.

The textbook is divided into ten chapters: 1. The basic principles of market economy 2. Entrepreneurship as the basis of the market economy 3. The assets of a company 4. Employees and wages 5. Marketing and selling 6. Financing a company 7. Taxes 8. Financial markets 9. Personal finances 10. National and world economy

I have decided to use the order of the chapters in the textbook to organize the case studies, I propose to be used as CLIL input in the Economics lessons at secondary specialised schools, as I believe it will enable an easier orientation in them. 29 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

In the first chapter with the title “The basic principles of market economy” and the sub- chapter 1.1.3 The Standard of Living is being discussed which can be characterized and measured as the level to which the demands of the population are fulfilled. It is said to consist of three parts: the amount of products and services consumed by the population and their quality; the amount of products and services offered to the population and their quality; and the standard conditions of life (Klínský et al. 2012). To illustrate these concepts the letter named “Give Thanks, for What” of 25th November 1972 could be used. It introduces the notable personality of James Reston, a famous American editor and columnist whose career was associated with The New York Times (James Reston, n.d.), remembering his visit to China where he was treated by acupuncture, presumably as the first American, when having his appendix removed. His description of an experience with traditional Chinese medicine has influenced American society and in Alistair Cooke‟s words: “in this country we are now in the full flush of the belief, or the fashion, or the superstition, that there is no human ill that cannot be cured in a trice by a Chinese sinking in a needle” (p. 198). This story illustrates the power potential of the journalists to influence the popular belief and thus the whole market, as in response to this article acupuncture has become widely used throughout America. The most important part of this letter, fulfilling our demands for CLIL input, can be found at its end, and is represented by the summary of Mr Reston‟s column printed on the occasion of Thanksgiving and mapping the economy of United States in 1972 in concrete numbers and putting it into a wider frame of political situation with a rather optimistic ending that “there is less danger and fear of a major clash between the nuclear powers than at any other time since the start of the Cold War” (p. 199). These positive announcements are ascribed to President Nixon‟s introduction of compulsory price and wage controls, really unprecedented steps for a Republican President in peacetime. In the end of his talk Alistair Cooke expresses certain pessimism over Mr Reston‟s positive attitude, doubts the racial equality in United States and points out that the gap between the prosperous majority and the poor and bitter minority is widening, which will inevitably lead to a social protest in future. He describes the possible negative outcomes of the situation in a rather poetical way by comparing it to being positioned in the eye of a hurricane: We may have cause to give thanks, but we should leave as an open question whether militant America is calming down once for all or whether it is pausing. Anyone who has ever been in the eye of a hurricane knows the blessed feeling of relief when the damage is done, and the clouds are scudding, and the blue is breaking through, just before everything goes laden and hissing again, and the fury is let loose from the other side (Cooke, p. 200).

30 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

In this letter Cooke presents the numerical statistics alongside with the feelings of happiness on Mr Reston‟s side. However, he still maintains his wider point of view not considering just the economic figures, but also their probable social impacts. Thus, we can teach the students an important lesson to handle any information with a certain amount of scepticism and to maintain critical thinking. If the time conditions allow, it would be advisable for students to find a similar article or another source of information on the economic situation in the Czech Republic and compare it to Cooke‟s view. Students can also contrast the current figures for the United States of America with those presented by Cooke, and then compare them to the Czech statistical data.

The first chapter of the textbook continues with naming the factors of production and in the sub-chapter 1.2.1 the problem of scarcity of some of the natural resources is being compared to the economic assumption of unlimited demand for certain goods or services. It is thus according to Klínský et al. (2012) the availability of the natural resources what actually limits the offer of certain goods or services. The same idea is the main topic of the letter named “Sharing the Water” which was first broadcast on 17th January 2003. Alistair Cooke (2013) informs in it about the problem of the state of California not having enough water for its 33 million inhabitants. Its main source of water is the Colorado River and the Federal government has decided that the water has to be shared. Cooke points out that the situation is especially difficult during the frequent draught periods when the watering of golf courses and gardens, washing cars, and even serving a glass of water in restaurants are forbidden. Cooke (2013) remembers his invitation by Mr Brown, the Governor of California at that time, to the first desalination plant in California, where he claimed the problem to be solved, as well as the fact that he has never more heard about this man. Later on, Cooke found out that the desalination of ocean water is a hideously expensive process, which probably caused the end of the Governor‟s career. Nevertheless, the present Governor of California has, according to Cooke, another difficult problem to solve, a colossal budget deficit which is the worst of American states. This might be the reason for the Californian government‟s notorious habit of imposing heavy sales taxes on almost everything. The same letter could be thus also used to illustrate the topic of taxes and what they are used for, which is outlined in chapter number seven of the textbook. Another view of the scarcity of the natural resources, which can possibly even result in an armed conflict, is taken by Cooke in the letter named “Fighting in What?” of 30th November 31 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

1990 in which he enumerates the set of various explanations to the United States involvement in the Gulf provided by President Bush. First, as Alistair Cooke reminds, Mr Bush said that: “United States was not going to tolerate tinpot dictators marching into little countries” (p. 342), which resulted in comparison of Mr Hussein to Hitler by the media. Then, it began to be said among people that the real underlying issue of the conflict is the oil, as the area was among the most abundant sources of it, and according to the words of Mr Cheney, the Secretary of Defence, if Mr Hussein invaded Saudi Arabia he would control as much as 42 per cent of the world‟s oil supply. Nevertheless, President Bush had not admitted this to be the real reason of the conflict. According to Cooke what was everyone afraid to express, was the fear that the Soviet Union could possibly control the countries in the area and thus control the source of Western Europe‟s energy, its economies, prosperity, and possibly even its survival as a continent of sovereign nations. Cooke (2005) summarises contempt of the Bush administration in these words: So, what I‟m saying in accusing the Bush administration of missing a great opportunity for popular education was its failure to take up the jeering view of the oil threat and point out how many great wars in the history start, if you like, with the Egyptian‟s chronic lack of wood, the whole of Western Europe‟s lack of spices to make food palatable, how often wars have been fought precisely because of the lack or denial of the raw materials by which you can live and prosper. Perhaps Mr Bush and his spokesmen ducked the vital question of access to Middle Eastern oil, maybe because people began to remind him how much less dependent the United States was than Western Europe and Japan on Middle Eastern oil (p. 343).

Finally, in the President‟s speeches and remarks, the threat of Mr Hussein‟s destructive nuclear capability has been presented, carrying with itself the imminent prospect of war in the Middle East. These two letters offer a more detailed picture of scarcity of the natural resources and the possible solutions to this problem, which are not always popular, in the case of the first one, and the prospective social outcomes, which could even source into an armed conflict, in the second one. After exploring these two case studies students can learn to grasp a particular problem in a wider perspective and think about the possible outcomes of its available solutions. Moreover, they both portray the field of politics in a greater detail offering an interesting insight into the issues of political decisions and their possible future results. Students can discuss the ideas in these case studies, try to find their own solution to the presented problems, or possibly reveal and talk about a similar actual problem in the Czech Republic.

32 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

The second chapter of the textbook has the title “Entrepreneurship as the basis of the market economy” and its first sub-chapter outlines the issue of the business plan and risk. In this chapter Klínský et al. (2012) assert that the risk is an inherent part of any business enterprise and outline the main areas of the business risk. According to them entrepreneurs risk that there will not be the demand for their products on the market, they will not be able to establish themselves on the market, or to obtain enough financial resources for the operation of their business, that their customers will not pay for their products or services, or the problems caused by external impacts will occur, e.g. being caused by the financial crisis. The threat that their products will not be demanded on the market, caused by the inevitable changes on it, can be shown on the example of Woolworth‟s stores which is described in the letter named “The End of Civilization” of 25th July 1997. Alistair Cooke (2005) narrates in it the almost unbelievable tale of Woolworth‟s stores: And in 1879, in a small town in upstate New York, a shop assistant, 27, urged his boss to install a single counter, at which all the goods were to be priced at five cents each. To pacify this lunatic, the shop-keeper agreed. Then this young Frank Woolworth borrowed from a businessman the vast sum of $400. He opened his own store, in which everything was priced at five cents. His store failed. But the same lender liked Frank‟s courage and staked him a store in a Pennsylvania small town which would, however, have two divisions of goods: one at five cents, another at ten cents. It was the first of its kind. It worked. Young Mr Woolworth had one ambition: to build a chain of stores where poor and working people could find open-shelf-service, and everything to buy for a nickel or a dime. It came to be called the Five and Ten. It started with a five-cent fire shovel, and went on to egg-whisks, pie plates, moustache cups, puzzles, clothes, locks, keys, galoshes, a soda fountain, chirping household pets, full meals, everything. In 1913 Frank built the world‟s tallest building, sixty storeys high. He died in 1919, leaving over a thousand Woolworth‟s stores in the United States and hundreds more in other countries. He thought, as everybody did, it would go on for ever (Cooke, 2005, p. 394, 395).

This story of a business success has come to its end when in July 1997 the closing down of all its four hundred stores in the United States was announced. They were among the last victims of the new shopping habits of the Americans, taking away with themselves the Woolworth‟s underlying idea of „applying democracy to human needs and desires‟. Nonetheless, as Cooke (2005) remarks in the end of this letter, Woolworth‟s idea was a common „impulse‟ to many other inventors who wanted to enlarge the possessions that working people could afford; e.g. Robert Gair, who invented a machine to produce cheap cardboard cartons; Jake Ritty, who patented the first cashier to keep a cumulative record of the day‟s transactions; a young electrical engineer who introduced a company switchboard thus making the telephone available to everyone; a dairy company from New York, which 33 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA started delivering milk in bottles; and Thomas Edison who invented a light and prophesied that electric lighting will soon become cheaper than using candles.

A similar topic is dealt with in the letter with an expressive title “The Death of the Old Media” of 14th January 2000, describing the acquisition of Time-Warner by America Online. This news has been reported in the media under this controversial heading and proposed the approaching end to the traditional sources of information and distributional channels which have been said to be replaced soon by the Internet. In Cooke‟s (2005) words: “we are seeing the beginning of the end of bookstore, the auction house, the yard sale, the real estate agent, the insurance man, the post office, the bulletin board, the newspaper, the radio broadcaster, the private club, and I should add, the blessed anchor of our daily life: the retail shop or store, what the young folks ordering their presents online call, „the old bricks and mortar‟“ (p. 429). Cooke compares the resulting surprise, or shock, of most people over 60 to the idea of living on another planet or, like Rip Van Winkle, being asleep for twenty years and coming awake not recognizing the world around them. Cooke (2005) tries to explain the background of this unprecedented take-over: What I‟m talking about is the staggering news that a company thought to be wobbling (with, however, a booming share price, but likely any minute to be gobbled up by Mr Gate‟s Microsoft) bought a huge company whose share price has lagged behind the market all through the bull market. A company riddled with debt, it was suddenly bought by this smallish company which paid 70 per cent more for the debt-ridden giant‟s shares than the stock market thought them worth. This acquisition of Time-Warner by America Online is being hailed as a brilliant formula, not for rescuing staggering companies but for unimaginable success as an institution that will date and replace all those institutions we‟ve been so cosy with for, say, two hundred years. One financial paper calls it the $164-billion enigma. It is certainly an enigma wrapped in a riddle to most of us who don‟t spend half our days hanging out on the Internet (p. 429).

However, in the last lines of his speech, Cooke offers some hope or at least a consoling afterthought for this group that, fortunately, “it won‟t all change by next Monday morning” (p. 430). As could be seen from the quote the letter named “The Death of the Old Media” of 14th January 2000 can be also used to illustrate the topic of financial markets which will be dealt with later in the text under the heading of chapter eight of the textbook – Financial markets. 34 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

In these two case studies students can see how the markets change or evolve in the course of time and how it affects the entrepreneurs. It would be advisable to find similar examples on the Czech market and compare or contrast them, thus making the discussion more interesting.

In the second chapter of the textbook the students also learn about the legal forms of entrepreneurship which are enumerated in the sub-chapter 2.2. Klínský et al. (2012) point out that every entrepreneur in the Czech Republic must have the business licence and be registered in the Registrar of the Business Companies. The case study of Mafia in USA, which does not fulfil its responsibilities to the state, can serve as a controversial example of a business-like organisation which should be legally supressed and eradicated. The letter named “The Last of Old-Time Gangsters” of 14th June 2002 was inspired by the death of John Gotti, one of the top officers of the Mafia, called the Dapper Don. Cooke presents in it not only the personal history of this man, but also the way Mafia worked and earned its money by theft, street assault, stealing of cars, and offering the shopkeepers and restaurant owners protection from an unseen enemy. Cooke (2005) notes that in the course of time John Gotti‟s ways of operation became more elaborate extending themselves “over big robberies, drug deals, corrupting trade unions, and ordering the „liquidation‟ (as Stalin used to say) of rival mobsters, sometimes of ordinary citizens who got in his way” (p. 476). He further points out that during a federal investigation it was proved that Gotti, together with the Gambino family, controlled the pay cheques and working hours of some of the nation‟s most vital industries: waterfront, construction, and the collecting and disposal of garbage. Finally, in 1990, he was successfully charged with thirteen acts of racketeering, five murders, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and tax evasion (ibid). Alistair Cooke continues his talk trying to answer the complicated question, what happened to the gangsters who used to be so popular feature of American movies in the 1930s. He summarises the process of the Mafia‟s eradication as follows: The official answer is that in the 1940s, the famous reform Mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia, went after the top mobsters in the biggest way by appointing a special prosecutor of rackets, a city lawyer, one Thomas E. Dewey, who sent to jail the New York leader of the Democratic Party, and a federal judge, and broke Lucky Luciano‟s prostitution racket, and is also credited with crippling the highly lucrative protection racket. Until the Second World War, every resident of the island of Manhattan paid extra high prices for laundry, fruit and vegetables, in fact most foodstuffs that came on to the island by ferry or tunnel from New Jersey and the South. There were alert gangs on the New Jersey shore very anxious to see that we had clean laundry and edible fruit and vegetables – at a price. Prosecutor Dewey was so successful; he became Governor of New York and twice ran for President.

In the 1970s the federal government appointed a supervising team over the chronically corrupt teamster union – the truckers – the most influential union in the country since it had come to replace the 35 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

railroads as the nation‟s main carrier of goods and foods. In the 1980s-1990s, Rudolph Giuliani, as a federal prosecutor, weakened four of the five families, cleaned corruption out of a big downtown trade show centre, and really broke the grip of the mob on the city‟s chief fish market (Cooke, 2005, p.477).

It is difficult to assess the actual result of all these attempts, according to Cooke, as in the course of two or three generations the First Families have transformed their image, and possibly even their character. Their children attend the best schools and some of them have changed their names. As Cooke (2005) puts it: “Looking, talking and acting like the genuine preppy article, they moved quietly into the more respectable fields of investment banking and related enterprises. So, only a first-rate and daring investigative journalist could say how deep and wide is the Mafia‟s influence” (p. 478). Again, in this case students should be asked to search for similar stories from the Czech environment to prepare for the discussion. It will be an easy task as these topics belong among the popular ones and are often covered by the media.

The sub-chapter 2.4 of the textbook explains the main target of the non-profit organizations, which is to improve the standard of living of the whole society, e.g. the government ensures the function of state, the army ensures our safety, and non-profit organizations help the weak, poor and unhealthy. It outlines their basic division into organization elements and non-profit organizations which obtain part of their resources from the budget of their mother institution and are allowed to obtain money from the donors (Klínský et al. 2012). The case study of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, widely known under its abbreviation FEMA, whose main activity is to provide low-cost loans to people who have suffered loss of property or injury can be used as an example of such an agency. It is introduced in the letter named “San Francisco Earthquake” of 20th October 1989 recollecting this occasion and Cooke (2005) wonders on its inherent irony that in today‟s age of worldwide communication “the only people who hadn‟t a clue to what was going on were the people of San Francisco and other neighbouring cities, without power” (p. 326). He continues that compared with the earthquake of April 1906, this one had done comparatively less damage thanks to the new building code adopted in 1907 which was made even stricter in 1946, and again in the early 1970s in a response to the introduction of new building materials and the first attempts to build skyscrapers in the city. Moreover, according to Cooke (2005), the calm and organized reaction of the city inhabitants, which definitely was another reason for the low number of victims, can also be 36 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA accounted to the fact that the Federal Emergency Management Agency held a simulated earthquake drill in the San Francisco city only two months before the actual one happened. In spite of the fact that FEMA is a government agency, it still accepts the contributions from the compassionate public donors as is noted by Alistair Cooke at the end of his speech. As Alistair Cooke (2005) reflects: … all these helpers, expert and amateur, came together under the government‟s central authority: the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which it so happens held a simulated earthquake drill throughout the city only two months ago. FEMA‟s main job is the granting of low-cost loans to people who have suffered loss of property or injury. FEMA just now suffers from a cruel disability; most of its national team is off in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and South Carolina, working sixteen hours a day helping to repair the wrecked lives of over quarter of a million victims of Hurricane Hugo. A disaster insurance expert with FEMA brought us a timely, if grisly, reminder on Wednesday, that Hugo is a far greater human catastrophe than the earthquake. At this moment, FEMA is trying to handle 20,000 applications for help in the Virgin Islands, 45,000 in and around Charleston, South Carolina and 200,000 in Puerto Rico. FEMA‟s resources have touched bottom, and the man stressed for all of us who feel compassionate about San Francisco that cash – for Hugo, from people, anywhere – is still the main burden of their appeal (p. 329).

This case study serves as a nice illustration for the topic of non-profit organizations and an introduction to the discussion on their roles and importance. The situation in the Czech Republic should be explored and students should try to find real life examples of the non- profit organizations operating in their neighbourhood, their main aims and sources of money.

The fourth chapter of the textbook is dealing with the topic of employment and wages and even though the question of racial discrimination is not included in the text, I think that it would be beneficial for the students to explore it, because it is definitely inherent on the labour market in the Czech Republic. As the basis for the discussion the letter called “Martin Luther King – the Black Washington” of 23rd January 1987 could be used in which Cooke describes his memory of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., whom he had seen while attending the service at the Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal church. Cooke admires King as a black leader who “triumphed with no more, but no less, than the weapons of Mahatma Gandhi: steadiness, unwavering courage, jail terms, abuse, patience, an absolutely iron refusal to meet violence with violence” (p. 303). Cooke (2005) sums up the situation on the American labour market in 1987 in his own specific way: 37 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

So the revolution has been won? No. So things are much the same? No. Black unemployment is still twice that of whites. Four black families in ten have no man in the house. But beyond any other white society I know, blacks are no longer the obvious pool of menial labour. They have spread their ablest through every sort of profession and job, up from businessmen and bank clerks to editors, sheriffs and mayors – of five of the seven biggest cities – to the Supreme Court. No cause yet to crow. But it is a vastly different, more colour-blind society from the one I took for granted when I left Montgomery that spring evening thirty-two years ago, and waited for my train in a waiting room marked, „Whites Only‟ (p. 303).

If students start their discussion at this point, they can try to count how many of the higher positions in the Czech Republic are actually occupied by Romany. They can explore the statistics on this particular issue and determine its possible roots. This topic belongs among the controversial ones and would demand careful preparation of both the teacher and students.

The topic of labour unions is introduced in the sub-chapter 4.4.2 named “Conditions negotiated among the employees and employers”. Labour unions are characterized here as voluntary associations of those employees who have entered them. The appointed authorities then represent the employees in negotiations with the board of directors or the owners of the company. The labour unions represent even the employees who are not their actual members. The union authorities sign the collective agreement with the bosses usually for the time period of one year which summarises the agreed conditions for remuneration and employee‟s welfare in a written form. The strike is presented as the possible extreme solution if the negotiations between the management and the unions come to a standstill (Klínský et al., 2012). Alistair Cooke offers two views of this issue in his broadcasts, the first one in “I‟m All Right, Jack” of 21st May 1976 in which he discusses the piece of advice he was given by his father-in-law on the topic of one‟s salary division, that could be used to illustrate the topic of the chapter nine of the textbook “Personal income” and will be discussed later in the text. The presentation of this concept serves as an introduction to the description of practical points of a strike of maintenance personnel in the apartment houses where Alistair Cooke lived. He explains that although in most strikes the public understands the core of the dispute to be always the same, but in fact it is not, as his friend who works as a contract adviser in California explains: …the naive assumption we all make is that in every strike the dispute is that in every strike the dispute is between the employer and the employee, a conflict which is dramatized in the newspapers either as a fight between the ruthless union and the company going broke, or between the ruthless boss and the ground-down faces of the workers. He says this is „a bunch of – er – nineteenth-century ideology‟. He says that almost invariably both sides want the strike. Generally, to prove their need of recompense – more wages or a fairer profit margin – to some third party: the government, the city council, or even the consumer himself. Well, it was strongly hinted in our apartment strike that both the union members and 38 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

the landlords were eager to prove to the state government in Albany and the city fathers of New York City that rent control has to go (Cooke, 2005, p.213).

Cooke continues his talk asserting that the situation on the labour market has changed a lot with the development of the industrial and craft unions thus leading to an unprecedented state in which the people working in professions are comparably worse off. Alistair Cooke finishes his letter with the ironical point that: “It is odd that the more educated should have done nothing to define or justify their relative worth, while the less educated – with the help of such as my labour negotiator in this country, and the shrewd shop steward in other countries – have done everything” (p. 214).

Another point on labour unions is contained in the letter with the title “Expert Witness” of 27th June 1986 in which Alistair Cooke remembers his experience of appearing as an expert witness before a judge, being perfectly qualified for this role because he studied linguistics before he became a journalist, in a dispute with actors‟ unions over the generally applied rule stating that “an Englishman will be allowed to play his part in the American production if it can be demonstrated – before the actors‟ union – that he is sufficiently distinguished to be irreplaceable by an American playing the part” (p. 287). Cooke (2005) continues the commentary: This is not a regulation restricted to actors. It is a regular requirement of the immigration service (same in England). It applies to a doctor, a carpenter, anyone of foreign citizenship seeking to do a temporary job in the United States. The immigration service gets in touch with the appropriate union, and if the union agrees that the man, the woman, has some skill not likely to be matched by an unemployed American, he, she, will be allowed in. This applies all the way from labourers to nuclear physicists, though it would probably not be hard for the Pentagon and the President‟s chief scientific adviser to prove, or maintain, that Herr Schmidt or Joe Parkinson is uniquely qualified to take on the job they have in mind. For instance, there would be no ban on a nuclear physicist from any (non-Communist) country who knew why cockroaches are immune to radiation (and don‟t think there aren‟t in many countries men bending over test tubes and microscopes and bits of cockroach tissue trying to solve that puzzle) (p.287, 288).

This regulatory approach can be compared to the concept of free movement of labour force in the European Union and lead into the discussion of its real life impacts and thus would belong also into chapter 10 on “European Union”. Students can compare the European Common Market with its absolutely contradictory idea of free movement of labour to the protectionist approach employed by the Unions in the United States of America and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each of them.

39 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

Chapter 5 of the textbook with the title “Marketing” in the sub-chapter 5.4.1 reveals the various approaches to set the price according to the demands of the market and the prices of the competitors. The price is thus usually set on the basis of elaborate market researches (Klínský et al. 2012). An example of charging a premium price on a product and the story of success of Haagen- Dazs ice cream can be found in the letter named “How Ice-cream Changed America”, first broadcast on 30th November 2007. Alistair Cooke (2013) starts it with contemplating on the question of the so-called US English and the unattainable idea of monolingual United States because of the many immigrants coming to it. Then he continues with a story of success of a German immigrant who, in Alistair Cooke‟s words, “as a one in a thousand by a spark of ingenuity broke the mould of sweated labour and went off on his own and prospered”. This German baker started with baking his own bread, later on widening his offer to various bakery products including the cakes. After many years, his grandsons finally sold the prospering business with frozen cakes and cookies and its unique distribution system for $200 million dollars and started their own horse-breeding farm in Kentucky, thus fulfilling their American dream. Cooke (2013) continues with a similar story of another man with a pushcart, Reuben Mattus, immigrant from Poland who came to the United States in his middle teens and created a successful ice-cream business. But, the story of his unbelievable success started only in the beginning of the 60s, when Reuben Mattus realized, that his customers might be willing to pay more if he offered them something special. So, bearing in mind the idea that snobbery is a universal treat, he introduced a special name, Haagen-Dazs, for his ice-cream, at the same time thickening and enriching his new brand for which he charged more than his competitors. His idea of superiority proved to be extremely successful and made Haagen-Dazs ice-cream popular not only in America, but also around Europe and Asia. At the age of 71 he had hundreds of Haagen-Dazs franchise stores all around the world. Responding to the demands of the market during the 90s, he even changed the recipe of his ice-cream and introduced its low-fat version thus finishing his story with a point at which, according to Cooke, the wheel had gone the full circle. It would be beneficial if students could find some examples of products which are bought at a premium price on the Czech market and discuss how successful the strategy is in these particular cases. This pricing approach is usually connected with the idea of intensive advertising which is dealt with below.

40 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

The topic of advertising, can be found in the sub-chapter 5.6.1 of the textbook named “Commercials – something you cannot avoid”, which summarises the most typical strategies used in this field. Among them slogans, rational and emotional appeals can be found. The slogans are pointed out as an ideal method to differentiate the product or service of a particular company from its competitors and to assist its memorising by the customers. By the constant repetition the slogan enters the sub conscience of the customer and the product can be differentiated this way from its competitors (Klínský et al. 2012). An example of the slogan usage is included in “Origins of American Slang” of the 14th August 1987. In this letter Alistair Cooke remembers a new type of TV commercial, first broadcast in the spring of 1948, “which doesn‟t cry up its own product so much as cry down the product of its competitors” (p. 308). This particular technique used to name the chief competitor and sneer at its claims thus offering grounds for a libel suit and is now forbidden by law. Cooke (2005) describes it vividly: In this particular ad, you saw two women looking down at a very meagre hamburger, and at their side a little old lady with a craggy face. You sensed at once from her scowl that she was the representative of the chain that was making the ad. She was, apart from her angry carbuncle of a face, tiny: in life, only four feet ten. So all we saw of her, above the counter, was her bobbing angry face. She had obviously had enough of the pitiful object her friends had been served. And she suddenly barked at them: „But where‟s the beef, where‟s the beef?‟ It touched the hearts of those millions of us who, when eating out, very rarely come on the genuine article, a plump patty of chopped sirloin or filet, but more often a sliver of a patty that could be mistaken for a coaster to rest your drink on, and composed usually of pounded cereal and other foreign bodies impregnated with a shred of meat. The line „where‟s the beef‟ must have been echoed in a thousand lunch counters and roadside restaurants (p. 308).

The tiny lady in this ad was the popular TV commercials personality Clara Peller who, after having died in 1987, received the dignity of a two-column obituary in the New York Times and was reminded also on all the national networks. Her quote in this concrete advertisement has been so popular at the time that it had become a national idiom and was even adopted by Mr Walter Mondale in a TV debate with Mr Gary Hart, another contender for the Democratic nomination. Cooke uses this story as an illustration to the fact that television ad is the latest source of American popular idiom and points out that “once an idiom no longer calls up a picture of the condition that bred it, it dies” (p. 310). The language is thus constantly changing as it is being enriched by the new idiomatic expressions all the time, while the old ones are becoming obsolete and forgotten. This fact can lead to a fruitful discussion in the classroom based on quoting the various expressions from television commercials, which have entered the language, and their extended use in everyday situations. 41 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

In chapter 8 of the textbook, with the title “Financial Markets”, the Czech pension system is explained in the sub-chapter 8.4.3 and offers a possibility of comparison to its American and British equivalents. „Getting out of the rat race‟ or the retirement in other words is described in “The Retiring Kind” of 9th September 1977 in which Alistair Cooke contrasts the completely opposite attitude of the Americans and Brits to the retirement. He reveals that: Englishmen, in my experience, go about it in a far less irascible way. They assume, or maybe they‟re taught from birth, that any job carries with it daily stretches of boredom. So they jog along for thirty, forty years and patter off sweetly or seedily into an inadequate pension, and then they are galvanized into doing what they‟ve secretly wanted to do: to catch butterflies, collect stamps or book matches, read all of Trollope or grow turnips. An old lady wrote to me a year or so ago from Dorset, a lady plainly engrossed in her singular hobby. ‟My retirement,‟ she wrote, „which came in my sixty-fifth year, has made it possible for me to pursue my hobby: to catch The Sound of Music wherever it is being shown. Sometimes, I sit through all three performances. So far, I‟ve seen it seventy-nine times, and I hope the end is not yet.‟

The English live a life of boredom and then switch to mania. With Americans it is other way round. They are paranoid for years about the grind and horror of their jobs till they get to the pension, and then they mope and putter and mutter and confront their wives with a new ordeal – the daily nuisance of having to cook a lunch for a hanger-on (2005, p. 229).

So, it is Americans who according to Cooke (2005) dream of getting out of the rat race and finding a calm place to spend their pension, while the British assume that every job entails a certain amount of boredom and in their pension they devote their time to pursuing hobbies they have always secretly hoped to do. He further extends on this idea by quoting a moral first told to him by an old schoolmaster that he considered ridiculous at that time: “Never let your wants outstrip your needs” (p. 232). However, Alistair Cooke is persuaded that this line contains useful advice to be given to someone on the verge of pension. He gives a real example of a pensioned pair who successfully managed to reduce their wants to their needs and moved to a cottage in Ireland. This letter offers an opportunity to compare the general idea on retirement in Great Britain and United States of America to the situation in the Czech Republic. Students will certainly have a lot of experience with this topic from their own families and neighbourhood which they can use for the purposes of the intercultural comparison. Cooke deals with the topic from a more practical point of view and thus his opinions can serve as an ideal counterpart to the theoretical approach taken by the authors of the textbook.

A different view of retirement is presented in “Time to Retire” of 16th January 1987 where Alistair Cooke ponders over the suitable reaction to someone‟s announcement that they are about to retire. This thought had been provoked by a letter he got from a friend in England 42 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA and Cooke asserts that there are absolutely no greeting cards available for such people in the United States. It is typical for Americans to value people according to their success and as Cooke (2005) summarises: “in a nation that coined the phrases „over-achiever‟ and „under- achiever‟, a man who retires has announced that from now on, he‟s going to be a „non- achiever‟. Not quite a disgrace, but nothing to cheer about either” (pp. 295, 296). Moreover, he points out the difference in the typical retiring age, which was 60 in Britain and over 70 in America at that time, might reflect a different view of the limits of a person‟s stamina and his usefulness to society. Cooke remarks that this information is particularly notable if we take into account that there is no actual difference in the life expectancy. Nevertheless, the age at which a person becomes a „senior citizen‟ in America is, similarly to other countries, 65 and it is when you become entitled to various social benefits. Cooke (2005) further explains how the American Social Security system actually works: When the American Social Security system was started, a regular percentage was taken out of your pay-cheque, on the understanding that it would go into a giant piggy bank in which all those withheld payments would sit and collect interest until the accumulated money would be paid back in the form of retirement benefits. This is the general understanding, and it is false. No wonder this is the popular myth, because the system, when it was first established, was called „an intergenerational income transfer program‟ to which most beneficiaries replied: „How much is in it for me when I‟m old?‟ What it meant, and means is that in the beginning and now, active workers have a part of their salary withheld in order to support people already retired. And when today‟s workers retire, they in turn will be supported by a future generation of workers (p. 298).

As Cooke (2005) summarises, in fact it works on the underlying assumption that active workers will support people already retired and was successfully functioning for about forty years, before the life expectancy increased and forced the government to start drawing on reserves because there are “millions more retired than was originally figured on” (p. 299). In spite of this fact, no one dares to propose the cut on Social Security and thus the federal extension of the compulsory retirement age can in fact be seen as the government‟s attempt to balance the budget. In this case, students can discuss the solutions to this issue employed by the Czech government and compare them to the situation in America. It would be advisable to explore the current figures on the Internet to verify the current situation in the US and Czech pension system.

The sub-chapter 8.4.4 of the textbook deals with the subject of stock and shares and the authors characterize shares as special documents representing a certain value which can be exchanged for other forms of currency and some of them can be used to pay. Investment into 43 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA stock and shares can result in higher yields than putting them into a bank account. However, this form of investment requires certain knowledge and contains a risk of loss (Klínský et al. 2012). This topic could be enriched by the Alistair Cooke‟s opinion on the fraud inherent in the financial markets presented in the letter with the title ”The End of the Eighties – Great or Greedy” of the 27th April 1990. It depicts the character of Michael Millken, called the King of the Wall Street Jungle who was accused by the Federal Court of six felony acts: conspiracy; filing false information with the Securities and Exchange Commission; securities fraud; violating the Commission‟s reporting requirements; mail fraud; and aiding and abetting in the filing of a false tax return. He pleaded guilty to all of them, at the same time marking the end of the Junk Bond business and probably also the decline of „the me decade‟ celebrating the young, successful, self-made men throughout the press and in the numerous books published on this topic. As Cooke (2005) recollects: Mr Millken has been known as the King of the Junk Bond, which may be very starkly defined as a perilously high-risk but (if it works) high-yield security. Junk bonds have undoubtedly helped many small firms through generous grants of credit, to survive and prosper. But more often than not, they have paper-financed giant takeovers, pushed them at once on to preposterous levels of debt and ruined them, along with legions of investors (p.338).

Cooke compares Millken to a Swedish financier, Ivan Kreuger, who committed suicide during the worst years of the Great Depression thus admitting “an unbelievable record of financial crookery on a splendid international scale” (p. 339) and worsening the situation of the world economy at that time.

Taking a wider view of the financial markets we can continue with the stories of Depression included under the title “Telling One Country about Another”, which was first broadcast on 2nd March 1969. In the beginning of this letter Alistair Cooke presents the controversial position of a foreign correspondent who naturally is: “both an interpreter and a victim of his subject matter” (p. 171), and thus should take into account that his own view is changing constantly. He recollects his first days in Washington in the late 1930s as one of the total staff of four British correspondents in the United States and describes America as an open book where a reporter with the most modest credentials could get to talk to everybody from the Governor, the local Congressman, the Chamber of Commerce, to the saloon keepers, and the local madams. 44 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

The country was suffering from Depression at that time and Alistair Cooke (2005) offers a horribly vivid picture of it in his words: In the 1930s you required no confidential sources to straighten you out on the condition of the country. The country was racked by Depression. On several trips around the United States, in the South more than anywhere, I was physically nauseated by the people I saw in the country towns and in the workless cities: the absolutely drained look of mothers nourishing babies at shrunken breasts, the general coma of the rural poor, with the telltale rash of scurvy or pellagra on the back of their necks. Today there is very little, if any, scurvy or pellagra in the South, because they varied the crops and learned about green vegetables, and the cities turned to textiles. They were no longer doomed to plates of rice and corn and potatoes and hominy grits – a feast, whenever it was a feast, of nothing but starch (p. 175).

Yet, he admits that only a little was written on this topic, as the situation was similar in Europe. So, what had been actually covered were the exhilaration of the Roosevelt era and the prospects of better future for everyone. He further continues in his thought asserting that this would not be possible today with the existence of television and its instant reaction to anything happening in the world and the resulting increase in our society‟s awareness. It is important to highlight that when we are talking about economic depression nowadays, we should not confuse this term with the Great Depression of the 1930s in the United States of America. As Alistair Cooke (2005) explains: If 30 or 40 per cent of the population was then at some stage of need, today only 11 per cent falls below the government‟s rather generous definition of a subsistence income of $2,200 a year. And though that may sound like small pickings, there has never been a time in this country‟s history or perhaps in human history when more people in one nation were better off, never a smaller percentage of two hundred millions who could be called poor. Yet there is less complacency, I believe, than there ever was. As I talk, the cities tremble and the countryside groans over the shame of it (p. 175, 176).

Consequently, whenever we are talking about the state of depression in the economy of a particular state, we should always carefully study the real figures illustrating it. If we do so, we might actually stop complaining about it.

Another view of the Depression is presented in “The Day the Money Stopped” of 8th March 2002 in which Cooke recollects the 4th March 1933 when the newly elected President Roosevelt declared moratorium on all banks. He illustrates the situation with a story of his own experience on that weekend when he had planned to show the New York City to a friend on her first visit to America. Despite the complicated beginning, their trip ended up successfully thanks to the help of Cooke‟s friend from Yale who almost magically solved their problem with accommodation by a „due bill‟. Cooke (2005) remembers spending the night in various Harlem nightclubs “dispensing carefree tips until the ready cash had gone” (p. 45 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

469). The next morning scrip money was issued by the Governor of Connecticut as an interim form of currency. Based on this experience Cooke (2005) decided to study the origins of the Depression and outlines his findings in these words: I learned about Black Thursday, 24th October 1929, the day when blocks of shares went down the river of the New York Stock Exchange, in 20,000 lots. J. P. Morgan and his banker-rescue team plugged the flood with $25 million, and for a month or two things steadied, till the bigwigs said that was nasty but the recession was over. But this was to Congress a band-aid solution. Two Western Senators, one Mr Smoot and one Mr Hawley, proposed a major, curative operation: a radical new tariff bill on imports. A hundred top economists petitioned President Hoover not to abandon his free-trade prejudice. But he signed the bill. The market started to go down, unemployment rose alarmingly, the angry Europeans were less able than ever to pay their huge First World War debt. They retorted in kind. It was depressingly plain, in the spring of 1932, that the Smoot-Hawley tariff had guaranteed the descent into the pit of thirteen million unemployed, and what would be known as the Great Depression (p. 469).

Cooke compares the situation to the recent tariff bill on imported steel signed by President Bush, hoping that it would not lead to the same consequences. The students can learn an important lesson from this letter that every government action has its consequences which can be sometimes quite unprecedented.

In chapter number nine of the textbook students study the topic of personal income and in its first subchapter they learn about the earnings and spending of the personal, or household, budget. To illustrate it the letter “I‟m All Right, Jack” of 21st May 1976 can be used in which Cooke (2005) discusses the piece of advice he was given by his father-in-law on the topic of one‟s salary division, when he was to get his first one, in these words: I think I was saved from living the life of a secret slob by my father-in-law, an austere New England puritan. When I came back to the United States for keeps, he explained to me – as you might to a child about to receive its first weekly allowance – how „we Americans‟ divide a breadwinner‟s salary: „You try to pay between a fifth and a quarter of your income for rent, never more than a quarter, and you set aside 10 per cent of your income for charity. The rest goes for food and savings.‟ For a time, I followed this punctiliously, for I had applied for citizenship and took it to be a requirement of the Constitution. Later, I regret to say, rents went up, and so, but not for a long time did the income (p. 211).

This practical example can serve as a starting point for a research on the ways how the personal, or household, income is typically divided in the Czech Republic and what is the advice presented on this topic in the media. The individual findings of the students can then be compared and discussed.

The final chapter of the textbook, with number ten, has the title “National and world economy” and in the fourth sub-chapter it outlines the basic information on European Union 46 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA and its common market. Klínský et al. (2012) summarize the common European market as having evolved gradually out of the mutual cooperation of the EU members in the economics area. The common market is based on four freedoms which are: free movement of goods and services, people and capital. The free movement of people means free travel and the possibility to get employed in any EU country without a work permit. This freedom of movement can be compared to the regulatory approach taken by the American unions to control the labour market which had been already explored sooner in the text under the heading of labour unions.

47 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA 6 Conclusion

As outlined in the introduction this thesis attempts to introduce the unique personality of Alistair Cooke and his lifelong project at the BBC named Letter from America. It highlights some of the topics discussed in Letters from America and tries to point out their educational potential which could be used as a source of real language for both the students and teachers of English. Moreover, it suggests that their potential can be employed even in the lessons of Economics at secondary specialized schools in the form of authentic CLIL input. Alistair Cooke discusses a wide range of topics and introduces to his listeners a distinctive point of view resulting from his British origin; education obtained at Cambridge, Harvard and Yale universities; and a colourful life, which is therefore discussed in the second chapter of this thesis in a greater detail. This chapter briefly describes Alistair Cooke‟s most important life events and introduces his beloved topics of culture, movies, jazz music and golf which are often mirrored in his work. It also offers a summary of his most important works in the form of a table 1 and presents Cooke‟s view of himself in his self-caricature. The third chapter summarizes the motifs recurring in Letters from America and groups them under several common headings which are: immigration, belonging among Cooke‟s personal topics and occurring in several of his letters; portraits of American cities and sights; US history in political and social context; US politics, Presidents and presidential elections; democracy and relationships among nations; national holidays and festivals; famous personalities; and stories about Alistair Cooke‟s family. All these topics can be used to extend the knowledge of English teachers in the form of self-study source, or for teaching English to more advanced learners as a real-language input. The fourth chapter deals with the CLIL method as a type of bilingual education, outlines its basic underlying concepts and maps the situation in the Czech Republic. Furthermore, it points out some of the latest opinions on it, taken from the International CLIL Research Journal. The positive points of CLIL are revealed by Ting (2010) who claims that this method conforms to the way the brain actually works. Moreover, according to Sudhof (2010) CLIL can help to promote intercultural learning. Among the negative points mentioned by Breidbach and Viebrock (2012) is the possible inefficiency of this method, the existence of underachievers and the fact that it is used only for certain subjects in German schools. Overall, the positive aspects of CLIL prevail and advocate for its wider use in Czech classrooms. However, its implementation demands the close cooperation among the specialized teachers to ensure its efficiency. Based on these ideas this theses suggests that 48 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA some of the topics in Letters from America could be used as an authentic CLIL input in the Economics lesson taught as a part of the subject called Social Studies at secondary specialised schools. The fifth chapter discusses the individual business and economics topics occurring in Letter from America, tries to provide a more detailed view of Alistair Cooke‟s work in the form of block quotes, and outlines their possible employment in the Economics lessons at secondary specialized schools as a supplementary material to the textbook Economics by Petr Klínský, Otto Münch and Danuše Chromá to improve the intercultural understanding and widen and deepen the scope of knowledge of the given problematic among Czech students. The proposed case studies are expanded by ideas for their actual use in the classroom. The topics in this chapter are grouped according to the outline of the textbook in order to enable an easier orientation in them and can be summarised as follows: the standard of living represented by the letter named “Give Thanks, for What” of 25th November 1972 offering the view of US economy in that year; scarcity of the natural resources shown on the example of the state of California and its lack of water in “Sharing the Water” of 17th January 2003, and as the possible reason for the Gulf War in “Fighting in What” of 30th November 1990; business risk in the form of threat that the situation on the market will change and the products will no longer be demanded on the market illustrated by the example of Woolworth‟s stores in the letter named “The End of Civilization” of 25 July 1997, and the acquisition of Time-Warner by America Online in “The Death of the Old Media” of 14th January 2000 which could be also used to illustrate the topic of financial markets; the importance of enforcing the legal forms of entrepreneurship can be proved by discussing the controversial case study of Mafia which can be found in the letter named “The Last of Old-Time Gangsters” of 14th June 2002; non-profit organization – the Federal Emergency Management Agency is portrayed in “San Francisco Earthquake” of 20th 1989; under the heading of employment the topic of racial discrimination should not be forgotten and is presented in the letter named “Martin Luther King – the Black Washington” of 23rd January 1987; labour unions and interesting points on the background of strikes in “I‟m All Right, Jack” of 21st May 1976; 49 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

setting the right price for the product, which belongs to the field of marketing, can be found in the letter named “How Ice-cream Changed America”, first broadcast on 30th November 2007 offering an example of charging a premium price on Haagen Dazs ice-cream; advertising – specifically, the usage of slogans in TV commercials and how they enter the language in “Origins of American Slang” of the 14th August 1987; pension system and contrastive picture of the attitude of the Americans and Brits towards it in “The Retiring Kind” of 9th September 1977, and discussion on the typical age to go to pension in “Time to Retire” of the 16th January 1987; the fraud inherent in the financial markets in the letter with the title ”The End of the Eighties – Great or Greedy” of the 27th April 1990; the Great Depression with its portrait in “Telling One Country about Another” first broadcast on 2nd March 1969, and its origins in “The Day the Money Stopped” of 8th March 2002; personal (household) income in “I‟m All Right, Jack” of 21st May 1976; and Common European Market and its free movement of labour which can be compared to the regulatory approach employed by American unions discussed earlier in the text. To conclude, this thesis tries to introduce the memorable personality of Alistair Cooke to his potential Czech listeners and readers, who might not have heard about him yet. Moreover, it attempts to outline the educational potential inherent in his phenomenal series named Letter from America. Based on an extensive quantitative research, as circa one hundred and fifty out of the total nine hundred podcasts available in the BBC Radio 4 archives have been studied, it offers a summary of the motifs recurring in it and tries to indicate their roots in Alistair Cooke‟s life. It also recommends them as a plentiful source of study material for both students and teachers of English. Furthermore, as a result of the content and formal analysis and using the underlying principles of CLIL education, it suggests that the original approach to the social, historical and cultural events, which Cooke employs in his broadcasts, is in an agreement with the definition of competences and can be illustrated by the proposals for their actual usage in lessons of English and Economics at secondary specialised schools.

50 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA References

Alistair Cooke. (n.d). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alistair_ Cooke on 20Jul2013 Breidbach, S., Viebrock, B. (2012). CLIL in Germany: Results from Recent Research in a Contested Field of Education. International CLIL Research Journal, vol.1 (4), 5-16. Retrieved from http://www.icrj.eu/14/article1.html on 28Oct2013 Cooke, A. (2005). Letter from America, 1946-2004. London: Penguin Books. Cooke, A. (2013, May 9). Letter from America by Alistair Cooke. Podcast retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00f6hbp on 28Oct2013 Černý, J. (2009, August 11). Zaostalost, setrvačnost a tradice. Svět viděný internetem. ČRo6. Retrieved from http://www.rozhlas.cz/cro6/internet/_zprava/618794 on 25Mar2014 Gotlieb, H. Archival Research Center, Boston University (n.d.). The Alistaire Cooke Collection at Boston University. Podcast retrieved from http://hgar-pub1.bu.edu/web/ alistair-cooke/home on 28Oct2013 Hanušová, S., Vojtková, N. (2011). CLIL v české školní praxi. Brno: Studio Arx, s.r.o. Higham, N. (2004, March 30). Obituary: Alistair Cooke. BBC News. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3581573.stm on 28Oct2013 James Reston. (n.d.) In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Reston on 29Jan2014 Klínský, M., Münch, O., Chromá, D. (2012). Ekonomika. Ekonomická a finanční gramotnost pro střední školy. Praha: EDUKO nakladatelství, s.r.o. Kreč, L., iDNES.cz (2004, March 30). Zemřel legendární redaktor BBC. iDNES.cz/Zprávy. Retrieved from http://zpravy.idnes.cz/zemrel-legendarni-redaktor-bbc-dzn-/zahranicni.aspx ?c=A040303_182149_zahranicni_lkr on 6Apr2014 RVP 75-31-M/01 (issued by MŠMT 6May2009). Retrieved from http://www.glassschool.cz/ admin /fckeditor/userfiles/file/RVP,%20%C5%A0VP%20apod./RVP%20P%C5% 99ed% C5%A1koln %C3%AD%20a%20mimo%C5%A1koln%C3%AD%20pedagogika.pdf on 4Mar2014 Sudhof, J. (2010). CLIL and Intercultural Communicative Competence: Foundations and Approaches towards a Fusion. International CLIL Research Journal, vol.1 (3), 30-37. http://www.icrj.eu/13/article3.html ŠVP SPgŠ Kroměříž (valid from 1Sep 2011). Retrieved from http://www.ped- 51 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA

km.cz/data/SVP%20SPgS%20Kromeriz.pdf on 4Mar2014 Thorpe, V. (2012, October 13). Radio 4 to embrace online future by unlocking its past. The Observer. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/oct/13/radio- 4- online-unlocking-past Ting, Y.T. (2010). CLIL Appeals to How the Brain Likes Its Information: Examples From CLIL-(Neuro)Science. International CLIL Research Journal, vol.1 (3), 3-18. http://www.icrj.eu/13/article1.html

52 ALISTAIR COOKE: LETTER FROM AMERICA Abstract

This thesis attempts to introduce the legendary, and yet not widely known, personality of Alistair Cooke and his spectacular BBC‟s series Letter from America to the attention of its prospective Czech audience. Based on a yearlong extensive quantitative research it summarises its main recurring motifs and tries to indicate their roots in Alistair Cooke‟s life. It also recommends them as a plentiful source of study material for both students and teachers of English. Furthermore, as a result of the content and formal analysis and using the underlying principles of CLIL education, it suggests that Cooke‟s original approach to the social, historical and cultural events is in an agreement with the definition of competences. On the grounds of comparison to the Framework and School Educational Plans and a textbook on Economics it outlines proposals for their actual usage in lessons of English and Economics at secondary specialised schools.