By William Roger Jones
Jason Lim, one of your columnists, wrote, ``Since languages are cultural products, they reflect a culture's norms, habits and way of thinking. English is no exception. In a sense, English is a pattern of thinking, not just a means of expression.'' (See ``English ― A Way of Thinking,'' The Korea Times, Dec. 12, 2006).
I find the ``logic of English as a thought process,'' and the ``primary pattern of analysis'' is best seen and taught through prose, specifically, the novel, novelette, or novella. Ordinary writing and speech interrupted only by chapter division, and constituting more dialogue than narrative, serves as superior method and material to capture the interest of the student of English.
Prose dialogue includes, by necessity, slang, idioms and expressions. Students can enhance fluency by immersing themselves in the culture of the target language, for culture defines language and language defines culture.
I started my students off with ``The Notebook,'' a 213-page American novel by Nicholas Sparks. It's historical, romantic and sentimental. It turned out that the flashback literary style and vocabulary were a bit copious, even for an advanced English learner. Nevertheless, we plodded through it and a showing of the DVD afterwards assisted understanding.
With this in mind, I now recommend shorter novelettes or novellas with literary elements that give style, clarity and appropriateness (diction) to the prose. One foreign language high school teaches ``The Great Gatsby,'' a 172-page novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Its setting begins around 1915 and runs into the very early 1920s in America. One must be able to understand the numerous cultural references, but there's an accompanying DVD.
Better still, I recommend ``Lilies of the Field,'' a 127-page sentimental novella by William Edmund Barret. You will experience the ``pattern of thinking'' that Mr. Lim speaks of through the main character, Homer Smith. You will also learn a bit of German from the emigrant Catholic nuns Homer encounters, as well as a bit of Latin through their plainsong chant: ``Ave maris stella, Dei mater alma, Atque semper virgo, Felix coeli porta.''
Immediately, within the first 26 pages of the book, the student of English can relate to the problem of learning another language. One of the Sisters drew a sketch of Homer's station wagon. ``Automobile? No?'' asks, followed by, ``Auto bus, no?''
``She knew that it had a special name and she did better with English than the others. They were all interested but when he told them that it was a station wagon, he drew blank looks. With a few deft strokes, the nun drew a depot, then a wagon. This was a station and this, a wagon. How could you put them together and obtain something that resembled an automobile? He did not explain that very well, but he tried.''
You'll also learn a bit of Spanish from the townspeople of Piedras. ``He (Homer) liked the cadences which Spanish brought to English and the occasional Spanish words or phrases, meaning nothing, delighted him because they so obviously belonged to what the man was trying to say.''
In spite of all this, Homer would drive into North Fork, population 7,094, which was a metropolis compared to Piedras. He would mingle with his own kind. ``He liked the speech of men and women like himself, and the humor of them. A man had heard no funny stories from speakers of other languages who were not fluent in English, and he could tell no funny stories. Humor belonged to the language that a man knew.''
After a five-month stay helping the nuns build a chapel, Homer moved on, realizing that he could not ``pleasure himself in strange cities indefinitely.'' Mother Superior Maria Marte's English improved with time, but she continued to struggle with the ``w'' and the ``th'' sounds, but barely noticeably in her memorized speeches for tourists. There did remain in her speech vestiges of ``a touch of South in her voice, a soft slurring, an odd emphasis on certain syllables.''
``Lilies of the Fields'' is a read-it-again novella and the movie has a watch-it-again appeal. I hope this brief introduction intrigues you to read the novella and see for yourself the diversity in American culture and language. As a reader, you will enjoy what's said and how. You will detect a pattern of thinking that cannot but help you toward fluency.
William Roger Jones has taught English in Korea for five years. He presently teaches with the English Program in Korea (EPIK). He has written a novella with his Korean wife entitled ``Beyond Harvard.'' He can be reached at billjones47@hotmail.com