Alistair Cooke: Letter from America
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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.