#62, Research Paper: ‘Reader Response and Its Relevance for Communicative Language Teaching in the Context of EFL Learners’ by Dr. Prashant Mishra

This paper is submitted by Dr. Prashant Mishra, Professor and Head, Department of English Govt. S.V.P.G. College Neemuch (MP) 458 441.

ABSTRACT

Structuralism and modernism endeavour to explore the core and the central meaning of a text. They regard an author as God and elevated a text to the heights of canonical status. On the other hand, Postmodernism celebrates indeterminacy, open-endedness, marginality, individualism and polysemy. Deconstruction opened the door for the multiple signification of a text by regarding meaning as slippery. Reader-Response theory further contributed to Postmodern poetics and pedagogy by regarding interpretation of literature as something which is related to the experience and background of the individual readers. It believes that a text cannot mean the same to all the individual readers who have different backgrounds, tastes, traits, experiences and knowledge and therefore, interpretation of a text is bound to differ from one reader to another. Since the reader-response assigns central role to a reader, the approach will be more useful to students in Indian context who are taught literature as a means to facilitate them to acquire competence in the use of English. Reader-Response will change the passive learner into active one. By providing opportunities to the learners in the process of the interpretation of a text, it will also provide them opportunities to participate in a number of activities based on their personal experience, opinions, background knowledge, and interests and will ultimately lead the learners towards autonomous learning and sharpen their creative and critical faculties.

Key words: Reader-Response, Communicative competence, Schemata, indeterminacy

Introduction

Reader-Response criticism that earned recognition as a separate critical movement in 1970s frees teaching of literature from the narrow restrictions imposed by the traditional teaching methodology keeping the writer and the text in the centre.  Earlier schools of criticism by keeping the writer and the text in the centre left no scope for learners to participate in the reading process. Structuralism and modernism endeavour to explore the core and the central meaning of a text. These approaches regarded author as God and elevated text to a canonical status. On the contrary, Postmodernism celebrates indeterminacy, open-endedness, marginality, individualism and polysemy by regarding meaning as slippery and contingent. Reader Response theory further contributed to postmodern poetics and pedagogy by regarding interpretation of a text as something which is related to the experience and background of the individual readers. It believes that a text cannot mean the same to all the individual readers whose backgrounds, tastes, traits, experience and knowledge differ and therefore, interpretation of a text is bound to differ from one reader to another. According to Stanley Fish(1980), “The place where sense is made or not made is the reader’s mind rather than the printed page or the space between the covers of a book”(Fish 1974:397). Wolfgang Iser believes that the author leaves the ‘gaps’ which the readers are expected to fill. He writes, “These gaps have a different effect on the virtual dimension, for they may be filled in different ways. For this reason, one text is potentially capable of several different realizations, and no reading can ever exhaust the full potential, for each individual reader will fill in the gaps in his own way, thereby excluding the various other possibilities, as he reads, he will make his own decision as to how the gap is to be filled”(Iser1989:79). Since the reader-response assigns central role to a reader, this approach will be more useful to students in Indian context who are taught literature as a means to facilitate them to acquire competence in the use of English. By providing opportunities to the learners to participate in the process of the interpretation of a text, it will ensure their participation in a number of class room activities based on their personal experiences, opinions, interests, creativity and knowledge and will ultimately lead the learners towards autonomous learning. The present paper attempts to explore the communicative potential of reader-response for EFL learners. (more…)

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#62, Research Article: ‘A Review of studies on Alternative Assessment in EFL Language’ by Sara Vali and Parnaz Kianiparsa

This article is submitted by Sara Vali and Parnaz Kianiparsa, lecturers at Payame Noor University, Iran (Damavand Center).

Abstract

As everyone knows, assessment becomes an indicative tool for analyzing the success of the teaching methods. Additionally, it helps students to recognize that they are making progress in foreign language development, which can motivate them to identify their own strengths and weaknesses, and encourage autonomy and independent learning skills. However, a teacher’s role is one of the significant elements in teaching process. Nowadays, a variety of alternative assessments have become popular. It has been suggested that unlike traditional assessment methods, alternative assessment techniques promote a trustful atmosphere so that students that are influenced by evaluation become engaged in its process. They are provoked to communicate freely and are more able to involve in self-criticism and rethinking. Students’ involvement in their own evaluation assists them in reaching maturity and responsibility in succeeding in language learning.
This paper aims to have a short review on the so-called “movement of alternative assessment” (Alderson & Banerjee, 2001) that has recently used in the field of language testing and assessment. In other words, this study tries to introduce new methods of assessment in the second or foreign language acquisition.

Introduction

These days, there has been an increasing interest in the use of assessment procedures that are completely different from conventional methods of assessment. More reliable forms of assessment, such as portfolios, interviews, journals, project works, and self- or peer- assessment have become more and more common in the second and foreign language classrooms.

These alternative forms of testing or assessment are more student-centered as they involve students in their learning, so that they can control their own language learning. Furthermore, these kinds of assessment–called alternative assessment–can help teachers to get enough information for developing their instructional plans and practices. Table below can indicate the obvious differences which exist between the traditional and alternative forms of assessment (Richards & Renandya, 2002). (more…)

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