Hints
These two initial reading
exercises fit very different Standards.
Exercise A focuses on the communications standards,
the way in which the text's mode of expression can be
confirmed in self-expression. Exercise B strives for
culture standards, understanding the text as a unique
product of terms set by its world. A comparison of
these two emphases in this instance illustrates the
difficulties posed when initial reading commences by
emphasizing how the text presents cultural difference rather
than how the text can enable self expression (the
communications standards) or just seeing what the L2
text says from the standpoint of the L1 reader (the
connections standards).
The class identifying discourse
types is on familiar ground. Students know about
predictable discourse patterns, from elephant and
knock-knock jokes. Once they are alerted to the
question-question pattern in the text, then, they will
easily know how to use it. As a communication task,
then, Exercise A avoids cognitive and background dissonance
by focusing on a discursive pattern that is common to both
German and English.
If you rejected this initial
reading task in favor of Exercise B, you may have been
concerned that students would be unable to comprehend the
references to Stalingrad and "Entnazifizierung" that occur
later in Beckmann's and Frau Kramer's conversation.
However, initial reading, appropriately conducted as a class
activity , would in any case involve no more than the first
twenty lines or first two paragraphs of a text. In
these lines, references to Stalingrad and "Entnazifizierung"
do not occur, and so need not interfere unduly.
Indeed, as the sample answers suggest, such background about
the Nazi era is superfluous for initial comprehension of the
text -- first and foremost, this scene is a linguistic
confrontation of a particular type.
Those students whose pre-reading
work has addressed postwar circumstances with considerations
such as "Stellt Euch vor, es hat in Eurem Land ein Krieg
gegeben. Welche Probleme würde es geben?" will
have practiced expressions such as "Wohnung verlieren" and
"Eltern / Kinder sterben." Thus Exercise B did not
need initial reading activities for cultural detail at this
juncture. Indeed, it would probably have proven a
distraction.
What Grade 8 and, indeed, all
students undertaking initial reading do need was missing
from Exercise B: focus for their initial reading.
Being told to read for important words is only part of the
comprehension equation. Readers need to know what
kind of important words, what kind of semantic meanings
to look for. The search prompted by instructions such
as "Finde die wichtigen Wörter" doesn't tell them
enough. Telling students "finde die Wörter, die
mit Wohnungen zu tun haben," on the other hand, narrows that
search to a feasible task. If Exercise B had foregone
the elaborate pre-reading and provided instruction to narrow
a student's search, it would have been on par with Exercise
A. In that case, Exercises B would have guided
students work toward the connections standards,
seeing what the German text said.
Note, too, that as emphasized in
the introduction to Part 2, communication and
connections standards represent the introductory
level tasks probably most appropriate for pre- and initial
reading exercises.