26.07.2013 Views

Magazine 0205.indd - Cappelen Damm

Magazine 0205.indd - Cappelen Damm

Magazine 0205.indd - Cappelen Damm

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

Illustrasjon: Inger Dale<br />

C a p p e l e n s t i d s s k r i f t f o r e n g e l s k l æ r e r e<br />

nr02-2005<br />

01<br />

02<br />

03<br />

04<br />

05<br />

06<br />

07<br />

08<br />

09<br />

10<br />

11<br />

12<br />

13<br />

14<br />

15<br />

16<br />

17<br />

18<br />

19<br />

20<br />

21<br />

22<br />

23<br />

24


Leder<br />

Kjære leser<br />

I skrivende stund er det usikkert hva regjeringsskiftet vil<br />

innebære for Kunnskapsløftet, men for engelskfagets del<br />

er trolig det meste fastlagt. Vi har fått en ny læreplan<br />

for 1.–13. klasse, og vet nå hva vi har å forholde oss til i<br />

jobben vår med å utvikle læremidler.<br />

Vi som jobber med engelskbøker i <strong>Cappelen</strong>, har gått<br />

inn i reformarbeidet med klare ambisjoner om å følge<br />

opp intensjonene i den nye læreplanen. Dette har vært<br />

en spennende og til tider frustrerende prosess, da<br />

læreplanen gjennomgikk relativt store endringer i fasene<br />

fra høringsrunde og fram til planen forelå i endelig<br />

versjon. Men vi har nå kommet langt i arbeidet, og vi har<br />

ikke nøyd oss med å “fl ikke” på gamle suksesser. Vi er<br />

ganske stolte av det våre forfattere har fått til. Når dere<br />

mottar våre nye bøker i mars, vil dere selv kunne vurdere<br />

om vi har grunn til å være fornøyde.<br />

Noe av det morsomste med å utvikle nye læreverk er å<br />

introdusere nye forfattere med spennende perspektiver<br />

på engelskfaget. I vårt nye engelskverk for yrkesfagene,<br />

Tracks, har engelsklærere med mange års erfaring fra<br />

arbeid på yrkesfaglige studieretninger stått for innholdet.<br />

En av dem, Petter Fuhre fra Rosthaug videregående skole,<br />

kan du lese om i dette bladet.<br />

Noen kommer – og noen går. Mange av dere har trolig et<br />

forhold til Richard Peel, som har vært en særdeles aktiv<br />

lærebokforfatter i mange år. Nå har denne ekte britiske<br />

gentleman valgt å takke for seg i <strong>Cappelen</strong>. Vi ba ham om<br />

å skrive et lite avskjedskåseri for oss, og det kan du lese<br />

på s. 14.<br />

En annen Richard fra England har derimot endelig takket ja<br />

til å gå inn i forfatterrollen for fullt. Richard Burgess har,<br />

etter lang tids “oppvartning” fra ivrige forlagsredaktører,<br />

det siste året jobbet sammen med Theresa Bowles Sørhus<br />

med å utvikle en ny utgave av Passage. Vi gir dere en<br />

smakebit på Richards skrivekunster i dette nummeret.<br />

Forhåpentlig vil dere ha litt glede av [ mægəzi:n] i<br />

høstmørket. Vi sees på kurs når sola begynner å varme<br />

igjen!<br />

03<br />

07<br />

10<br />

14<br />

[ mægəzi:n]<br />

CAPPELEN UNDERVISNING<br />

videregående skole,<br />

Postboks 350 Sentrum,<br />

0101 Oslo<br />

Telefon: 22 36 51 95/5177<br />

E-post: birger.nicolaysen@cappelen.no<br />

innhold<br />

06<br />

08<br />

12<br />

English Monarchs<br />

By Richard Burgess<br />

Ny alumnusforening for engelsk ved<br />

Universitetet i Oslo<br />

Read It!<br />

By John Anthony<br />

On leaving stable<br />

By Richard Peel<br />

16 Ny skoleordbok<br />

Ansvarlig redaktør:<br />

Birger Nicolaysen<br />

Redaksjon:<br />

Kirsten Aadahl<br />

Produksjon: PrePress as<br />

Petter Fuhre – språkmektig<br />

musiker, lærer og lærebokforfatter<br />

Notiser:<br />

Smått og stort om engelskfaget<br />

When English was a truly foreign<br />

language<br />

By Siri Hundstadbråten


ENGLISH<br />

MONARCHS<br />

By Richard Burgess<br />

King Arthur and his Round Table<br />

Boudicca (1st century AD) – Celtic warrior<br />

queen<br />

In the beginning there was no England,<br />

Scotland or Wales. There was Britannia. Or, at<br />

least, that was what the Romans called the<br />

windswept island they occupied in AD 43. The<br />

native Britons were, of course, not pleased to<br />

see the Romans and put up fi erce resistance.<br />

None was fi ercer than Boudicca, queen of the<br />

Iceni tribe. She was a widow who had inherited<br />

her husband’s power and rights, and demanded<br />

recognition from the Romans. Women’s<br />

liberation had not caught on in Rome and it<br />

was decided that she should be put in her<br />

place. Boudicca was publicly beaten and her<br />

daughters raped.<br />

But the Romans had made a big mistake.<br />

Boudicca’s revenge was swift and terrible. By<br />

all accounts she was a terrifying spectacle<br />

- very tall with a loud, harsh voice and a mass<br />

of red hair hanging down to her hips. First<br />

she took the Roman town of Colchester and<br />

slaughtered its inhabitants. Then she moved<br />

on to London, which she razed to the ground.<br />

But she knew victory could not last. When the<br />

Richard Burgess er født i Dover i England i 1956<br />

og fl yttet til Norge i 1976. Han jobber som lektor<br />

ved Fredrik II videregående skole i Fredrikstad<br />

og ved Høgskolen i Østfold. Han har tidligere<br />

vært forfatter av en av bøkene i <strong>Cappelen</strong>s serie<br />

American Ways (engelsk for yrkesfag). Richard har<br />

også utgitt fl ere bøker på sitt eget forlag – Fredrik<br />

Forlag – og har hatt diverse frilansoppdrag, bl.a. i<br />

Undervisningsradioen.<br />

Sammen med Theresa Bowles Sørhus er Richard<br />

forfatter av den nye utgaven av Passage, skrevet for<br />

Vg1 på studiespesialiserende utdanningsprogram.<br />

fi nal showdown with the Roman army came,<br />

she poisoned herself and her daughters rather<br />

than submit.<br />

Arthur (5th century AD) – the resistance<br />

fi ghter who became a mythical hero<br />

Everyone has heard of King Arthur. Most<br />

people have heard stories or seen fi lms about<br />

the castle at Camelot, the wizard Merlin,<br />

the sword Excalibur etc. Well, most of this<br />

belongs to the world of romance and was<br />

invented by writers the 19th century. But Arthur<br />

seems to have been a real person too. The real<br />

Arthur (or Artorius) belongs to a period that<br />

is often called the Dark Ages for the simple<br />

reason that we know so little about it.<br />

The Dark Ages start around AD 410 with the<br />

withdrawal of Roman soldiers from Britain.<br />

By now the Celtic Britons had become very<br />

sophisticated in their tastes and ways,<br />

living in towns, enjoying theatre, hot baths<br />

and a well-organized society. But these were<br />

troubled times with Germanic tribes looking<br />

for new lands to conquer. Without the Roman<br />

army the British were defenceless, and soon<br />

waves of Angles and Saxons arrived from<br />

over the North Sea. The newcomers were not<br />

interested in theatre – and even less in hot<br />

baths. In British eyes they were a bunch of<br />

hooligans. Unfortunately they were also armed<br />

to the teeth…<br />

It is in this struggle against the tide of<br />

invasions that a real-life Arthur appears.<br />

We know very little about him, other than<br />

that he became an important fi gure in British<br />

resistance to the invaders. According to one<br />

source he fought and won twelve battles<br />

against the Saxons. But in the long run it was<br />

a lost cause. In fact, to this day, the Welsh<br />

word for England – Lloegyr – means “the lost<br />

lands”.<br />

01<br />

02<br />

03<br />

04<br />

05<br />

06<br />

07<br />

08<br />

09<br />

10<br />

11<br />

12<br />

13<br />

14<br />

15<br />

16<br />

17<br />

18<br />

19<br />

20


01<br />

02<br />

03<br />

04<br />

05<br />

06<br />

07<br />

08<br />

09<br />

10<br />

11<br />

12<br />

13<br />

14<br />

15<br />

16<br />

17<br />

18<br />

19<br />

20<br />

William the Conqueror (1027-1087)<br />

If there is one date that every English person<br />

knows, it is 1066 – the date of the Battle of<br />

Hastings. The last successful invasion of<br />

Britain, it was an event that changed the<br />

country for ever. The invaders came from<br />

across the Channel in Normandy. Their leader<br />

was one Guillaume, called William the<br />

Bastard by his English enemies, but forever<br />

remembered as William the Conqueror. Not<br />

only did he claim direct descent from the dead<br />

English king, he said that his rival claimant,<br />

Earl Harold of Wessex, had promised him<br />

allegiance. Harold denied any such thing. The<br />

two huge armies met at a place near Hastings<br />

now known as Battle. It was a close-run thing,<br />

lasting for six hours. At the end of the day it<br />

was the Normans superior cavalry that tipped<br />

the balance. Harold was killed, possibly with<br />

an arrow in the eye.<br />

William the Conqueror, king of England 1066–1087<br />

England became an occupied country with<br />

French the new language of administration<br />

and power. It took several generations before<br />

the distinction between occupier and occupied<br />

became blurred and before the population<br />

began to speak the same tongue. Ironically it<br />

was English that won, although it was a new,<br />

improved English – full of French loanwords.<br />

Henry VIII (1491-1547) – the king who<br />

broke with Rome<br />

In the 14th century winds of religious change<br />

were blowing over Europe. People like Martin<br />

Luther were questioning the authority of the<br />

Church and starting their own “protestant”<br />

forms of Christian worship. We call this<br />

period the Reformation. In England the young<br />

King Henry VIII was a strong supporter of the<br />

Catholic Church and opposed to mad, newfangled<br />

ideas like translating the Bible into<br />

English so that everybody could understand<br />

it. In fact, he was happy to burn people at the<br />

stake for suggesting such things.<br />

Odd then that Henry VIII should be<br />

remembered chiefl y as the king who broke with<br />

Rome and the Catholic Church. The reason<br />

for his change of heart was that he had tired<br />

of his fi rst wife, the Spanish Catherine of<br />

Aragorn. Not only was she not as young and<br />

pretty as his mistress, Ann Boleyn, but more<br />

importantly she had been unable to give<br />

him what he desired most: a son. When the<br />

Pope refused his request for a divorce, Henry<br />

declared himself head of the English church<br />

– the Church of England or the Anglican Church<br />

as we know it today.<br />

Ann soon bore him a child – a daughter. The<br />

king – now immensely fat and bad-tempered<br />

– suspected her of adultery and had her<br />

executed. During his life Henry had altogether<br />

six wives. Two he divorced, two were executed,<br />

one died in childbirth (a son!) and one survived<br />

him. By all accounts he wasn’t an easy man to<br />

live with.<br />

Elizabeth I (1533-1603) – the Virgin<br />

Queen<br />

If only Henry had known that the best-loved<br />

monarch of them all, with a historical period<br />

named after her, would be his daughter.<br />

Elizabeth, born of poor Ann Boleyn, reigned for<br />

45 years and the Elizabethan period is one of<br />

the most exciting in English history. It saw<br />

England become a world power, defeating its<br />

arch-enemy Spain and establishing colonies<br />

in America. It was the period when William<br />

Shakespeare wrote the plays and poems that<br />

he is still famous for today.<br />

At the centre of it all was Elizabeth, looking<br />

like a goddess in her extravagant dresses and<br />

with her face powdered white. Intelligent and<br />

well-educated, she liked the company of men,<br />

Queen Victoria, queen of England 1837–1901, empress of India 1876–1901<br />

but she never married. The new colonies in<br />

America were named Virginia in honour of the<br />

Virgin Queen. As for behaving like a monarch,<br />

her father need not have worried. Elizabeth<br />

managed to turn her sex to an advantage.<br />

When the huge Spanish Armada was on its way<br />

to attack England, she held a famous speech<br />

at Tilbury Dock in London, dressed in armour<br />

like a new Boudicca. “I know I have the body<br />

of a weak and feeble woman,” she cried, “but I<br />

have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a<br />

king of England too.” The crowd loved it!<br />

George III (1738-1820) – the king who<br />

talked to trees<br />

It is not very fl attering to be remembered as<br />

the king who lost the American colonies and<br />

talked to trees, but that is the unlucky fate<br />

of George III. In fact, it’s very unfair too,<br />

because during his reign Britain actually<br />

became stronger than ever before. True, the<br />

American colonies were lost when colonists<br />

decided they had had quite enough of English<br />

taxes and declared independence. But it was<br />

also during his reign that Britain defeated<br />

Napoleon and became the leading world power.


As for talking to trees, it was one of the more<br />

innocent things that George III did during the<br />

bouts of madness that affl icted him during his<br />

59-year reign. He could be violent and abusive<br />

too, and had to be bound in a straitjacket to<br />

restrain him. The madness of the king was no<br />

secret, and for the last nine years of his life<br />

his son, who later became George IV, had to<br />

rule as Prince Regent.<br />

Victoria (1819- 1901) – Empress and<br />

Mother<br />

Victoria was queen for 63 years and gave her<br />

name to a period which is still important for<br />

modern Britons. This was when Britain became<br />

the world’s leading industrial power and the<br />

centre of a huge empire. By the end of her<br />

reign she was Queen and Empress of a quarter<br />

of the world’s population.<br />

When she came to the throne in 1837, a mere<br />

18 years old, the monarchy was having a very<br />

bad press. Many people had come to associate<br />

it with it unnecessary expense and sexual<br />

scandals. (Does that ring a bell?) Young<br />

Victoria was determined that she would be<br />

a role model for her people. Family values,<br />

strict Christian morality and hard work<br />

were central to her public image. She and<br />

her beloved German husband Albert had nine<br />

children, many of whom married into European<br />

monarchies. When Albert died of typhoid in<br />

1861, Victoria was devastated and spent the<br />

rest of her life in mourning, out of the public<br />

eye.<br />

Edward VIII (1894 – 1972) – the King<br />

who chose not to be<br />

You may not be able to apply for the job of<br />

monarch, but you can hand in your resignation.<br />

Edward VIII did just this. When the dashing<br />

prince succeeded to the throne in 1936 it<br />

was well-known secret that he was having<br />

an affair with Wallis Simpson, the wife of an<br />

American businessman. When she divorced her<br />

husband, Edward VIII planned to marry her.<br />

But his government were strongly against the<br />

idea, arguing that the British public would<br />

never accept Mrs Simpson as Queen. Faced<br />

with the choice between losing the crown or<br />

the woman, he chose the former. “I have found<br />

it impossible” he said in a moving speech at<br />

his abdication, “to carry the heavy burden of<br />

responsibility and to discharge my duties as<br />

King as I would wish to do without the help<br />

and support of the woman I love.”<br />

It has only recently come to light why the<br />

government was so opposed to the marriage.<br />

The fact that she was a twice-divorced<br />

American was just half of the story, it seems.<br />

According to FBI reports, Mrs Simpson had<br />

strong links to Nazi Germany and was even<br />

rumoured to be having an affair with the<br />

German Ambassador in London.<br />

Edward and Mrs Simpson – the Duke and Duchess of Windsor<br />

Queen Elizabeth II<br />

Elizabeth II (1926 -)<br />

Royal affairs and infi delities used to be<br />

the stuff of rumour. In the modern media<br />

world it is the stuff of fat headlines and<br />

paparazzi photographers. Pity, then, poor<br />

Elizabeth II, head of a Royal Family where<br />

such scandals have become a way of life.<br />

Her sister Margaret’s diffi cult love-life was<br />

constantly in the news. Of her four children,<br />

three are divorced. Charles’ rift with Diana<br />

was particularly painful and public, and<br />

when Diana later died in a car accident the<br />

reputation of the Windsors hit an all-time low.<br />

In the midst of it all, though, the Queen has<br />

kept her popularity. Her own private life – and<br />

her relationship with her gaffe-prone husband,<br />

Prince Philip – is seldom criticised, and most<br />

people agree that she works very hard. She<br />

spends about three hours a day on paper work<br />

alone and is the most widely-travelled headof-state<br />

in the world. After half a century<br />

on the throne many wonder how the British<br />

monarchy will survive without her.<br />

01<br />

02<br />

03<br />

04<br />

05<br />

06<br />

07<br />

08<br />

09<br />

10<br />

11<br />

12<br />

13<br />

14<br />

15<br />

16<br />

17<br />

18<br />

19<br />

20


01<br />

02<br />

03<br />

04<br />

05<br />

06<br />

07<br />

08<br />

09<br />

10<br />

11<br />

12<br />

13<br />

14<br />

15<br />

16<br />

17<br />

18<br />

19<br />

20<br />

Petter Fuhre<br />

Den unge Rosthaug-læreren Petter Fuhre nøyde<br />

seg ikke med å spille en CD for elevene da Irland<br />

dukket opp på pensum. Han tok heller gitaren fatt,<br />

lærte seg sangen i læreboka, og fremførte den i<br />

klasserommet.<br />

- Det skjedde noe med meg der. Jeg ble så fascinert<br />

av melodiene og stemningene i musikken. Det<br />

ble starten på et årelangt dykk i irsk og skotsk<br />

musikkskatt, forteller musikeren fra Åmot. Snart<br />

fi kk han med seg fl ere, og nå kan bandet Killieburne<br />

Brae se tilbake på fi re år med rivende utvikling<br />

som irsk folkrockband. – Den perfekte pub- og<br />

konsertopplevelse, lover Petter.<br />

Øre for språk<br />

Selv mener musikeren og språklæreren at det er<br />

sammenheng mellom musikaliteten og språkøret<br />

hans. - Språk er på mange måter musikk. Å oppfatte<br />

språk dreier seg blant annet om å oppfatte lydene<br />

og melodiene i språket, proklamerer 35-åringen, som<br />

lever med musikk hele tiden. Alltid trommer han<br />

med fi ngrene på arbeidspulten, og alltid tenker han<br />

nye arrangementer.<br />

Men at han kunne vandret rett inn i et av dronning<br />

Elizabeths teselskaper med sin Queen´s English,<br />

slik en av engelsklærerkollegene hans mener, vil<br />

han ikke høre på. – Toppen RP, sier Petter, som<br />

etter å ha fl ørtet litt med Cockney-aksenten en<br />

tid, bestemte seg for å forene musikklidenskap og<br />

engelskuttale.<br />

Frelst på Irland<br />

Nå er det irsk som står på tapetet, og ikke et<br />

middelmådig irsk.<br />

- Målet er å lære meg å snakke med vestirsk aksent.<br />

Det er den mykeste og vakreste engelsken jeg kan<br />

tenke meg, forteller han. For å nøre opp under<br />

Irlandsfascinasjonen hans sendte skolen ham på<br />

kurset ”Absorbing Ireland”, i Irland.<br />

– Rafterys kurs for engelsklærere er vel nokså kjent<br />

blant norske lærere nå, og kan på det varmeste<br />

anbefales, mener Petter. Irsk kultur er fantastisk.<br />

Det er noe i væremåten og sjargongen. Menneskene<br />

er så vennlige og pratsomme, sier irlandselskeren.<br />

Irland har også satt sitt preg på yrkesfagdelen av<br />

det nye læreverket:<br />

- Et av kapitlene dreier seg om Séan fra Galway.<br />

Han spiller blant annet tinnfl øyte, som er<br />

favorittinstrumentet mitt, sier Petter med et fl ir.<br />

Beskjeden lærer<br />

Pratsom er Petter selv stort sett bare i trygge<br />

omgivelser.<br />

- Jeg trives på scenen, men blir stille i sosiale<br />

sammenhenger med mange ukjente, bekjenner han.<br />

Likevel bestemte han seg tidlig for å bli lærer.<br />

- Jeg begynte å observere lærerne mine i<br />

begynnelsen av videregående. Noen sier at nivået<br />

Nye læreverk gir muligheter for å introdusere nye og spennende forfattere. [ ' mægə'zi:n]<br />

har snakket med Petter Fuhre fra Rosthaug videregående skole. Petter er hovedforfatter av<br />

engelskbøkene for teknikk og industriell produksjon og elektrofag.<br />

har sunket i skolen, men nivået på hva? Evnen til<br />

å hoste opp ferdigtygde faktakunnskaper? Selv<br />

tror han ungdommenes evne til samarbeid og til<br />

å tenke kreativt er bedre nå enn da han gikk på<br />

videregående skole. Elever i dag stiller nok høyere<br />

krav til variasjon og dynamikk i undervisningen.<br />

Det henger sammen med samfunnet for øvrig, der<br />

øyeblikksunderholdning preger hverdagen – på<br />

godt og vondt. Samtidig viser elevundersøkelser<br />

at tradisjonell tavleundervisning er savnet når<br />

prosjekt-hype og “learning by doing” har tatt helt<br />

av.<br />

Variasjon og mangfold har vært ledetråder for<br />

arbeidet med det nye læreverket, i både tekster og<br />

oppgaver. Ikke minst er dette viktig i en lærebok for<br />

yrkesfag, mener Petter. Det betyr imidlertid ikke at<br />

lærestoffet skal gjøres banalt. Mek-elever hevdes<br />

å ha intellektet i håndleddet. Dette er selvfølgelig<br />

like fl åsete som det er feil. På Rosthaug leser<br />

Petters VK1 Kjøretøy Hamlet.<br />

- Også yrkesfagelever takler autentisk engelsk,<br />

ingen tvil. Forenklet engelsk kan faktisk virke<br />

uinspirerende og nesten fordummende. Men<br />

autentiske tekster bør være relativt korte. Det har<br />

vi tatt hensyn til i den nye boka.<br />

Indianere<br />

Petter tegnet mye da han var gutt, før musikken tok<br />

ham.<br />

- Jeg tegnet det jeg var opptatt av: KISS, dinosaurer<br />

og indianere. Indianerne danner en egen epoke i<br />

musikerlærerens liv.<br />

- Vi var et par stykker som konkurrerte om å skrive<br />

de lengste og mest dramatiske stilene på skolen.<br />

Den nye læreplanen har et punkt om urbefolkning<br />

som jeg ønsker velkommen. Det å lese litteratur<br />

skrevet fra maoriens eller aboriginerens ståsted gir<br />

oss vestlige nye, sunne perspektiver.<br />

Skriving av lærebok<br />

Vi er nysgjerrige på hvordan Petter reagerte da han<br />

fi kk tilbud om å skrive lærebok.<br />

- I utgangspunktet ble jeg invitert til å være med<br />

i en konsulentgruppe og ante lite om omfanget.<br />

Trodde det ville dreie seg om korrekturlesing,<br />

oppgaveideer og lignende. Det å få hovedansvaret<br />

for en av yrkesretningene kom først som et lite<br />

sjokk, som raskt ble erstattet av iver og ambisjon<br />

og inspirasjon. Og en hel del ydmykhet for et tungt<br />

fagfelt og et ansvarsfylt oppdrag.<br />

Ikke alt har vært like enkelt i manusarbeidet, synes<br />

Petter. - Vi har latt yrkesfagkapitlene dreie seg om<br />

fi re personer i den engelsktalende verden, for å gjøre<br />

stoffet interessant og virkelighetsnært. Dette har<br />

skapt utfordringer mht. autentisitet og språklig<br />

nivå tilpasset norske elever. Tommy fra Sydney har<br />

jo ikke norske elever i tankene når han prater med<br />

formannen på skipsverftet.<br />

Petter lyser opp når vi spør hva som har vært de<br />

morsomste erfaringene så langt.<br />

- Uten tvil selve skrivingen. Og diskusjonene i<br />

lærebokgruppa. Vi har hatt – og har – et svært<br />

fruktbart samarbeid, som helt klart gir bedre bøker.<br />

Nå er forfatterne svært spent på reaksjonene på<br />

bøkene.<br />

- Selvfølgelig er vi det – av fl ere årsaker. Læreres og<br />

elevers oppfatninger er slett ikke alltid like. Men<br />

det er her variasjon og mangfold er så viktig. Jeg er<br />

overbevist om at alle vil bli fornøyd med mye. Det er<br />

jo det vi har hatt som mål gjennom hele prosessen.<br />

- Det blir også spennende å se hvordan de<br />

forskjellige bøkene på markedet vil se ut. Den nye<br />

læreplanen er ikke like spesifi kk på omfanget av<br />

yrkesbiten i læreverket (jf. 40–60 % i gammel<br />

læreplan). Derfor kan vi få se vidt forskjellige<br />

tilbud. Vi har imidlertid jobbet ut fra det syn at det<br />

yrkesfaglige er helt essensielt i læreverk for elever<br />

på YF. Det er også interessant for elevene.<br />

Jeg håper og tror vi lykkes med målsettingene for<br />

det nye læreverket, sier Petter, som gjerne vil at<br />

vi får med at det har vært viktig for forfatterne<br />

å ta den nye læreplanen på alvor, å gi et enda<br />

videre omfang av yrkesfaglige temaer, å skape nye,<br />

inspirerende og utfordrende tekster og oppgaver, og<br />

å legge best mulig til rette for elever på forskjellig<br />

nivå.<br />

Våren 2006 kommer Tracks,<br />

<strong>Cappelen</strong>s nye læreverk for<br />

engelsk på yrkesforberedende<br />

utdanningsprogram. Læreverket er<br />

skrevet etter ny læreplan i engelsk<br />

og har egne bøker for følgende<br />

yrkesfag:<br />

• Bygg- og anleggsteknikk<br />

• Design og håndverk<br />

• Elektrofag<br />

• Helse- og sosialfag<br />

• Medier og kommunikasjon<br />

• Naturbruk / Restaurant- og<br />

matfag<br />

• Service og samferdsel<br />

• Teknikk og industriell<br />

produksjon


Ny alumnusforening for engelsk<br />

ved Universitetet i Oslo<br />

Har du tråkket rundt her noen år?<br />

Da er kanskje denne foreningen<br />

noe for deg!<br />

Medlemskap er gratis, og registreringen enkel. Den<br />

gjøres på følgende måte:<br />

14<br />

- Gå til http://alumnus.uio.no<br />

- Les demoen, eller gå direkte til Bli medlem.<br />

- På første Bli medlem-side velges<br />

Alumnusforeningen for engelsk.<br />

- På neste side fyller man inn de relevante<br />

opplysningene. Disse kan siden enkelt endres.<br />

- Klikk Lagre, og det er det!<br />

- Man får umiddelbart tilsendt passord via<br />

e-post. Dette kan også endres etter behag.<br />

Brukernavnet er e-postadressen.<br />

Engelskavdelingen ved Institutt for litteratur,<br />

områdestudier og europeiske språk ønsker<br />

sine alumner velkommen inn i den nye<br />

Alumnusforeningen for engelsk!<br />

”Alumnus” er latin for ”tidligere elev”, og foreningen<br />

er ment som et samlingspunkt for tidligere studenter,<br />

nåværende masterstudenter og ansatte, til faglig og<br />

sosial vederkvegelse. Gjennom foreningen kan man<br />

holde kontakt med sine studievenner, få siste nytt<br />

fra instituttet, abonnere på UiOs magasiner, delta på<br />

faglige og sosiale arrangementer, stille spørsmål,<br />

debattere, få tilgang til fagstoff, eller bidra selv med<br />

fagstoff. Meningen er at foreningen skal være dynamisk<br />

begge veier, slik at det ikke blir enveiskommunikasjon<br />

fra instituttet til alumnene, men også andre veien.<br />

Samfunnskontakt er et satsningsområde for UiO, og<br />

alumnusnettverkene er en del av denne satsningen.<br />

Engelskavdelingen er fornøyd med å være blant de<br />

første som starter opp, og håper på god respons fra<br />

alumnene.<br />

Den nye foreningen er en videreføring av IBAlumni som<br />

ble startet ved IBA i 2001. Det viste seg imidlertid at<br />

det var vanskelig å administrere foreningen uten en<br />

god teknologisk plattform, så foreningen ble lagt på<br />

is inntil videre. Nå er den teknologiske plattformen på<br />

plass, og avdelingen ser frem til å videreutvikle dette<br />

møtestedet.<br />

For å bli medlem i foreningen må man ha hovedfag i<br />

engelsk fra UiO, eller en mastergrad med engelskfaglig<br />

studieretning innenfor studieprogrammene Europeiske<br />

og amerikanske studier, Språk, Litteraturstudier eller<br />

Lærerutdanningen. Hvis man ikke oppfyller kravene<br />

for medlemskap, men har en sterk interesse for faget<br />

og et stort ønske om å bli medlem, kan man søke om<br />

medlemskap på særskilt grunnlag.<br />

01<br />

02<br />

03<br />

04<br />

05<br />

06<br />

07<br />

08<br />

09<br />

10<br />

11<br />

12<br />

13<br />

14<br />

15<br />

16<br />

17<br />

18<br />

19<br />

20


Notiser:<br />

smått og stort<br />

om engelskfaget<br />

For første gang siden<br />

1995 blir det nå mindre populært å studere i utlandet, og det viser seg at<br />

det er studier i engelskspråklige land som opplever det største frafallet.<br />

Lånekassen melder at nedgangen i antall norske gradsstudenter i utlandet<br />

har sunket med litt over sju prosent det siste året. På de siste tre årene er<br />

andelen elever som reiser til engelskspråklige land redusert med 25<br />

prosent.<br />

Størst er nedgangen for USA, som har opplevd en halvering av<br />

norske studenter i løpet av en femårsperiode, melder ANB. Nedgangen<br />

skyldes ifølge Lånekassen den nye finansieringsordningen som regjeringen<br />

innførte i høst. Studenter i engelskspråklige land vil med ny ordning sitte<br />

igjen med en gjeldsbyrde på opptil 400 000 kroner for en treårig grad,<br />

hevder utenlandsstudentenes interesseorganisasjon ANSA.<br />

I forrige nummer<br />

av dette bladet ble det i denne spalten referert til en<br />

europeisk undersøkelse som viste at norske elever er<br />

helt i toppsjiktet i Europa når det gjelder engelskferdigheter.<br />

Nå viser en doktoravhandling utført av<br />

Glenn Ole Hellekjær ved Høgskolen i Østfold, at mange<br />

norske studenter får store problemer med engelsk fagspråk<br />

når de begynner på høyere utdanning. En tredjedel<br />

av studentene har vansker med å lese engelsk faglitteratur,<br />

ifølge tester Hellekjær har gjort.<br />

Hellekjær hevder derfor at engelskfaget i videregående<br />

skole må endres hvis elevene skal kunne møte kravene<br />

i videre utdanning. “Undervisningen må i langt større<br />

grad legge vekt på leseglede og mengdelesing av lengre<br />

tekster.<br />

De som har lest mye, har en bedre evne til å forstå<br />

betydningen av nye ord ut fra lesesammenhengen,”<br />

uttaler han til Aftenposten 14. september.<br />

En annen<br />

nordmenn beherske<br />

sor i statsvitenskap<br />

illusjon i dette land<br />

i Aftenposten 7. okto<br />

norwenglish”. Hagtve<br />

norske bedrifter som<br />

konsernspråk. Da bur<br />

holde standarder, fore<br />

politikere, akademike<br />

på engelsk. Hagtvet m<br />

som er korrekt engelsk<br />

Resultatet av dette er<br />

pidgin-engelsk, eller en


som har gått hardt ut mot forestillingen om at<br />

r engelsk på en god måte, er Bernt Hagtvet, profesved<br />

Universitetet i Oslo. “Vi nærer en alvorlig<br />

et: Vi tror vi kan engelsk,” skriver han i en kronikk<br />

ber, med den talende tittelen “Trusselen fra<br />

t er svært skeptisk til den rådende trenden der<br />

Statoil går over til å bruke engelsk som internt<br />

e kanskje Statoil leie inn filologer for å opprett-<br />

slår han, og minner om hvor hjelpeløse norske<br />

e og forretningsfolk blir når de skal kommunisere<br />

ner nordmenn mangler ydmykhet overfor hva<br />

og vilje til å motta kritikk for dårlig språkbruk.<br />

at vi konstruerer en egen variant av kolonitidens<br />

norsk pomor-engelsk.<br />

Læreplanen for engelsk programfag er nå til høring. I læreplanutkastet<br />

står følgende formulering:<br />

“Samfunnsfaglig engelsk og litteratur og kultur bygger på<br />

internasjonal engelsk.”<br />

Vi har fått bekreftet fra ellers sikre kilder at dette betyr at det<br />

vil bli følgende struktur på engelsk programfag:<br />

Vg1: elevene må velge internasjonal engelsk (5 timer)<br />

Vg2: elevene velger enten samfunnsfaglig engelsk (5 timer)<br />

eller litteratur og kultur (5 timer)<br />

Dersom en elev kun skal ha internasjonal engelsk, kan dette<br />

kurset velges på Vg3.<br />

Dette innebærer en klar endring i forhold til førsteutkastet til<br />

ny læreplan (jf. forrige nummer av [ mægəzi:n]), der ideen var<br />

at samtlige kurs kunne velges av elever fra alle studieforberedende<br />

utdanningsprogram på alle årstrinn, inkludert Vg1.<br />

At engelsk språkbruk brer om seg i samfunnet, ser<br />

vi ikke minst i næringslivet. I utdanningsmagasinet<br />

Kaleidoskopet kan vi lese om hvordan norske selskaper<br />

konstruerer stadig nye titler til sine ansatte,<br />

og disse titlene skal selvsagt være engelske.<br />

Northern Europe External Relations Senior Manager<br />

og Area Sales Manager Business Travel Norway<br />

er eksempler på dette. Ifølge Nils M. Sortland,<br />

Universitetslektor i organisasjonspsykologi, gjør<br />

en engelsk tittel at en stilling virker større og mer<br />

meningsfull. Man er en del av et globalt nettverk og<br />

kan sammenlikne seg med personer man ser opp til,<br />

på samme måte som barn ser opp til popstjerner.<br />

Jobbtitler brukes ofte for å oppnå tyngde overfor<br />

kunder. Men Sortland advarer mot inflasjon i flotte<br />

titler: “Dersom tittelen ikke står til arbeidstakerens<br />

funksjoner, får det motsatt virkning,” påpeker<br />

han.


10<br />

Read It!<br />

Reviewed It! Read<br />

The Closed Circle<br />

By Jonathan Coe<br />

Some of you might remember my<br />

review of The Rotters’ Club in the<br />

last edition of the magazine. I<br />

promised to review the sequel The<br />

Closed Circle in the next edition<br />

and quite surprisingly my editor<br />

agreed. If you remember, The<br />

Rotters’ Club was Jonathan Coe’s<br />

story of a group of young people<br />

attending King Edward’s School in<br />

Birmingham. This is a novel about<br />

adolescents in school and about<br />

Britain and Birmingham in the<br />

1970s that can interest our pupils<br />

because it has a perspective on<br />

life of people their age, shows life<br />

in a British school and informs us<br />

about a volatile period in recent<br />

British history. The novel ends with<br />

two hopeless predictions by one<br />

particularly visionary-challenged<br />

character, Sam Chase. One was that<br />

the quiet and introspective Benjamin<br />

Trotter would win the girl of<br />

his dreams, Cicely, and the other<br />

was that Margaret Thatcher would<br />

never become Prime Minister.<br />

When we return to the characters in The Closed<br />

Circle, 25 years on, Thatcher is long gone, but<br />

only after many turbulent (many would say<br />

destructive) years as Prime Minister and Cicely,<br />

who disappeared from Benjamin’s life, is still<br />

nowhere to be found. The main characters of The<br />

Rotters’ Club, who worked on the school paper<br />

together, have gone their separate ways and are<br />

now in their forties: Emily is an eager Christian<br />

and married, more or less, to Benjamin; Claire<br />

is recovering from a traumatic relationship with<br />

a married Italian and appears to be a restless<br />

wanderer; Doug has landed a top job as a political<br />

columnist on a major newspaper and judges the<br />

world with a sardonic eye while comfortably<br />

married into the upper class; and the youngest<br />

Trotter, Paul, the over-confi dent and smug one, is<br />

a New Labour MP, what else would he be ?<br />

The story starts with Claire writing an imaginary<br />

letter to her still missing sister (the mixture of<br />

narrative styles is continued from the fi rst book).<br />

We then meet Benjamin again. His marriage to<br />

Emily is failing and he falls in love with a young<br />

woman, Malvina, in a bookshop. Unfortunately,<br />

Benjamin’s head is still in the clouds and Malvina<br />

turns around and falls for his brother Paul, the<br />

aforementioned Labour MP, which of course<br />

threatens his marriage. The characters certainly<br />

refl ect the times.<br />

The framework of the novel is still Ben’s niece<br />

revealing much of the story from what she has<br />

heard and learned about by paying impossibly<br />

close attention to family details. The times are<br />

still volatile, but now there are demonstrations<br />

against the threatened closure of the Birmingham<br />

Rover factory, a smashed-up McDonald’s, the<br />

return of far-right politics, September 11, war in<br />

Afghanistan, the war in Iraq. Coe also returns<br />

to his theme of how the terrible things we are<br />

capable of doing in this world have far greater<br />

effects than we probably imagined. For example,<br />

Lois, Benjamin’s sister, never recovers from the<br />

IRA pub bombing in 1970s Birmingham, remaining<br />

a shattered victim of other people’s important<br />

causes and disaffection. Of this Claire says: “And<br />

I started thinking of all the other families, all the<br />

by John Anthony<br />

other people, whose lives must have been touched<br />

by that event, and how you could go mad trying to<br />

trace the thing back to its source…”<br />

From being dreamy kids high on hormones and<br />

somewhat innocent and ignorant of their world,<br />

the characters are now struggling with the<br />

responsibilities and problems of adulthood.<br />

Benjamin is searching for himself in vain, Doug<br />

is assigned to a new post, literary editor, the<br />

political journalist’s equivalent to being sent to<br />

Siberia, and Paul is pursuing his directionless<br />

career in New Labour. We see the characters dealing<br />

with sadness, loss and lack of accomplishment,<br />

and struggling to understand a world they<br />

neither expected nor really wanted. Benjamin,<br />

who was going to be a writer and composer, is an<br />

accountant, yikes!<br />

The book still has its charms, but to enjoy it, the<br />

reader has to have read The Rotters’ Club fi rst.<br />

The characters will be more understandable and<br />

the reader will be more interested in their fates.<br />

But in some ways the book is more about Britain<br />

in the 90s than about the characters, and it is<br />

perhaps here that Coe still shows some literary<br />

magic, although even here the social criticism<br />

feels a little perfunctory at times. I get<br />

the impression that Coe is a little tired of his<br />

characters and is more on the mark and funny<br />

when he is looking at our contemporary world. For<br />

example, Paul has great trouble trying to explain<br />

Tony Blair and how the Labour party leader ended<br />

up more like a neoconservative servant of the US<br />

Republican President than the leader of a once<br />

grand socialist movement. We are also witness<br />

to a world quickly losing sight of integrity and<br />

ethics as fat-cat executives are extravagantly<br />

rewarded for their business failures, golden<br />

handshakes and all.<br />

Now in their forties, the lives these characters<br />

lead are, well, rather glum, and the views they<br />

have on the contemporary world refl ect, well, the<br />

teacher’s generation, with a mixture of regret<br />

and disbelief at what the world has become. Coe<br />

examines this on the political and social level,<br />

looking at road rage, for example, and marveling


at how much a café dares to charge for a coffee<br />

and bagel (and even gets away with it). As our<br />

pupils are also often very critical of modern<br />

society, they should enjoy these insights and<br />

comments.<br />

Having mentioned some reservations I have to<br />

admit that the book still has interesting and<br />

entertaining observations of our contemporary<br />

times. In one passage Doug is witness to the new<br />

class of celebrity at a club:<br />

…His gaze was fi xed, instead, on a scene<br />

unfolding in the corner of the restaurant<br />

nearest to the entrance, where the young<br />

couple who had arrived just behind Paul in a white<br />

stretch limo were enjoying the attentions of a<br />

crowd of journalists and photographers. This<br />

couple, whom Paul had not recognized, had last<br />

year been two of the contestants on Britain’s<br />

most popular primetime reality TV show. For<br />

weeks they had kept the public guessing as<br />

to whether or not they were going to have sex<br />

with each other on camera. The tabloid papers<br />

had devoted hundreds of column inches to the<br />

subject. Neither of them had talent, or wisdom, or<br />

education, or even much personality to speak of.<br />

But they were young and good-looking, and they<br />

dressed well, and they had been on television, and<br />

that was enough. And so the photographers kept<br />

taking pictures, and the journalists kept trying<br />

to make them say something quotable or amusing<br />

(which was diffi cult, because they had<br />

no wit, either).<br />

This remains one of the great anomalies of the<br />

contemporary world. We strive for a good education<br />

and talk about raising standards in the<br />

knowledge society but many of our new heroes<br />

and celebrities appear to be quite the opposite of<br />

this picture. I believe that when I was growing up<br />

the ticket into the celebrity entertainment world<br />

was some kind of talent, or at least presumed<br />

talent, a talent that would be judged by serious,<br />

over-demanding and self-important critics. Today,<br />

sadly, we seem to see being a celebrity as a<br />

talent in itself. The reality programmes and other<br />

enterprises like Idol glorify the mundane and<br />

encourage this idea of being<br />

somebody by being somebody.<br />

Perhaps more telling is the<br />

following contrast that<br />

Doug sees at the club:<br />

Meanwhile,<br />

Doug could not<br />

help noticing,<br />

right next to them,<br />

waiting for his wife<br />

to emerge from the<br />

ladies’, the fi gure of<br />

Professor John Copland:<br />

Britain’s leading geneticist, one of<br />

its better-selling science writers, and regularly<br />

mentioned as a potential Nobel prizewinner. But<br />

no one was taking his photograph, or asking him<br />

to say anything. He could have been a cab driver,<br />

waiting to drive one of the guests home, as far as<br />

anybody else was concerned. And for Doug, this<br />

situation encapsulated so perfectly everything he<br />

wanted to say about Britain in 2002 – the obscene<br />

weightlessness of its cultural life,<br />

the grotesque triumph of sheen over<br />

substance,…<br />

Ah, Coe says it better than I do. Perhaps an even<br />

more important concern expressed in the book is<br />

the lack of core beliefs and ideals that Coe sees<br />

as a prevailing weakness of modern society. Doug<br />

Anderton presses Paul Trotter about Tony Blair<br />

and the “New Labour revolution”, asking him to<br />

defi ne the “third way”, the party’s fancy but vapid<br />

slogan. He then demands that Paul defi ne both his<br />

party’s and his own personal core beliefs, which<br />

he is unable to do beyond saying New Labour is an<br />

“alternative” to the “sterile, worn-out dichotomy<br />

between left and right”, whatever he thinks that<br />

means.<br />

What is disappointing, however, is that I sense<br />

the writer has lost interest in his characters by<br />

the end of the novel, that this continuation of<br />

The Rotters’ Club is not a labour of love, but an<br />

obligation – closure as they like to say on bad<br />

THE<br />

CLOSED CIRCLE<br />

JONATHAN COE<br />

American<br />

quasi-psychology<br />

programmes. As<br />

Coe approaches<br />

the end of his<br />

circle I suppress<br />

a yawn as the book<br />

disintegrates into<br />

an incomplete and<br />

clumsy wrapping up<br />

of loose ends.<br />

Anyone who liked The<br />

Rotters’ Club will be<br />

happy to know that we<br />

fi nd out what happened to Claire’s sister, and<br />

Cicely does make a rather belated appearance.<br />

More importantly, we fi nd out the real source of<br />

Benjamin’s religious experience in the fi rst book,<br />

I won’t spoil it, but will say this, the majestic<br />

appearance of the swimming trunks was something<br />

less than an act of God.<br />

So is this a book for our students? Perhaps.<br />

If they have enjoyed The Rotters’ Club this does<br />

bring the story to something of a full circle,<br />

and it can be interesting for young readers just<br />

starting out on their great journey into life to see<br />

how things turned out for the students of King<br />

Edward’s School in Birmingham. The novel does<br />

provide an interesting look at contemporary<br />

Britain and it is always worthwhile to learn about<br />

a contemporary society from its own literature.<br />

We can also see how life changes people and how<br />

our society changes so quickly away from us.<br />

But the narrative is told more from an adult’s<br />

perspective this time, it sometimes feels like the<br />

author is just going through the motions and the<br />

despondency of many of the characters undermines<br />

the author’s attempt at humorous social<br />

criticism. All in all, it is a bit glum and even Coe<br />

seems to have had enough by novel’s end.<br />

11


01<br />

02<br />

03<br />

04<br />

05<br />

06<br />

07<br />

08<br />

09<br />

10<br />

11<br />

12<br />

13<br />

14<br />

15<br />

16<br />

17<br />

18<br />

19<br />

20<br />

When English was a truly fore<br />

by Siri Hundstadbråten<br />

language and le<br />

When I moved house this summer, I came across some old English<br />

textbooks. Soon I was struck by how much teaching aids refl ect the period<br />

in which they were made. On Your Own in England by Gunnar Haarberg,<br />

published in 1960, shows how much times have changed for teachers and<br />

learners of English. Haarberg’s book was aimed at an adult audience of<br />

language-conscious and determined learners. For this reason, it is not<br />

entirely comparable to upper secondary school textbooks with which I<br />

am most familiar. Still, the ambitions, methodology and content of On<br />

Your Own in England, contrast so strongly with what is comme il faut<br />

today that it deserves a closer look.<br />

As the title indicates, On Your Own in England is supposed to help<br />

the learner handle common situations during a stay in England. It is<br />

structured around dialogues taking place on the boat to England, in<br />

customs, on the train, in a taxi, at the hotel and so on. At fi rst glance<br />

the situations seemed predictable enough, but on closer inspection,<br />

I realised that some of them were far from being so. Have you ever<br />

wondered what to say at the cobbler’s for instance? How to ask for a “a<br />

sole and heel, please” says a lot for post-war thrift, but is hardly what<br />

would be considered a basic skill today.<br />

Being able to order in a restaurant, on the other hand, is still highly<br />

relevant. Here it was the menu rather than the dialogue that attracted<br />

my attention. The menu may be summed up in word – traditional. There<br />

is no sign of cross-kitchen, celebrity chefs or indeed curry, which has<br />

now become the archetypal British dish. Watch out for a really fi lling<br />

meal!<br />

SOUP<br />

Chicken broth<br />

Oxtail soup<br />

Clear soup<br />

MEAT<br />

Mutton chop<br />

Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding<br />

Roast lamb, with onion or mint sauce<br />

Rump steak<br />

Veal cutlet<br />

VEGETABLES<br />

Baked potatoes<br />

Mashed potatoes<br />

Brussels sprouts<br />

Cabbage<br />

Caulifl ower<br />

Lettuce salad<br />

Scarlet runner beans<br />

PUDDINGS<br />

Apricot pudding<br />

Rice pudding<br />

Tapioca pudding<br />

DESSERTS OR SWEETS<br />

Baked jam roll and custard<br />

Cream sponge cake<br />

Layer cake<br />

Pie and cream<br />

Another classic activity in a book of this kind is shopping. The scene<br />

entitled “Mr. Nordmann goes shopping in London” says it all. There is<br />

an “oh so polite conversation” in the men’s department where our fellow<br />

countryman is looking for a tweed jacket. Afterwards we are presented<br />

with a so-called speech drill, which makes me long for the times when<br />

men were men and women were glad of it.<br />

– I’d like/I want/Could I have/Can I have a stick of shaving soap,<br />

please<br />

– some shaving cream, please<br />

– a packet of razor blades, please<br />

– some tooth-paste, please<br />

– a tooth-brush, please<br />

– not a nylon tooth-brush, but a bristle one, please<br />

– twenty cigarettes, please<br />

– a box of matches, please<br />

– some tobacco, please<br />

– a four-once tin, please<br />

– a mild mixture, please<br />

– some cigars, please<br />

Even though the protagonist is male, women have not been completely<br />

left out of the book. There is a female version of the shopping scene in<br />

which a Norwegian lady is looking for a pair of sensible walking shoes.


ign<br />

arning it a solemn pursuit<br />

The service is impeccable and even<br />

extends to reassuring the customer:<br />

“I’m sure your husband will like them,<br />

madam.” If you have ever wondered<br />

whether women’s lib was really worth<br />

the trouble, here is your answer.<br />

No book of this kind would be<br />

complete without a visit to a<br />

pub, perhaps the most English of<br />

institutions. What would be more<br />

natural for a visitor than to start<br />

by asking for a glass of beer?<br />

When the landlord answers him<br />

by asking what kind of beer<br />

he would like, the Norwegian,<br />

or “you”, has no option but<br />

to admit: “You see, this is<br />

my fi rst visit to an English<br />

pub. So I’m afraid I’ll have<br />

to return the question:<br />

What kinds of beer do you<br />

have?” The rest of their<br />

conversation reads like<br />

a cross-examination on<br />

beer and pub life.<br />

A lot more useful,<br />

however, is the fi nal element of<br />

the pub lesson: “What to say when you want to stand<br />

somebody a drink or standing a round of drinks”. Please make a mental<br />

note of the following expressions:<br />

May I get you a drink?<br />

What will you have?<br />

What’s yours?<br />

What would you like?<br />

Great efforts have been made to make sure the learner comes across as<br />

a generally well-meaning person. There is even advice on how to stand<br />

a round of drinks: “The next is mine.” A better way of winning friends in<br />

England would be hard to fi nd.<br />

The writer has an extremely well-developed eye for detail, to the extent<br />

that every possible piece of information seems to be included. Avoiding<br />

unforeseen or embarrassing situations is clearly one of the author’s<br />

major concerns. The listing of the signs on the London train is a case<br />

in point.<br />

“Notices in the train<br />

(Window) PRESS AND PULL DOWN TO OPEN<br />

(Door) SLIDE TO OPEN<br />

Did I hear anyone whisper false modesty?<br />

(Lavatory) VACANT-ENGAGED”<br />

Wouldn’t it be more<br />

sensible to encourage<br />

a rather more practical<br />

attitude to fi nding out the<br />

meaning of these words?<br />

The signs to be expected<br />

in the London underground<br />

are of the same kind: “Way<br />

out – To Street – Lifts – No<br />

Exit – All tickets to be shown<br />

at the barrier – This Side Out .”<br />

It is as if Haarberg wants to say<br />

“No embarrassment, please, I’m<br />

Norwegian.”<br />

After having made such a great<br />

effort learning English, Ola<br />

Nordmann is fi nally rewarded. When<br />

arranging for the journey home, the<br />

conversation runs as follows:<br />

You: Ola Nordmann. Shall I spell it<br />

for you?<br />

A: No, thank you. I’m getting used to<br />

the Norwegian names now. Nationality,<br />

Norwegian, I take it.<br />

You: Yes, you can hear that, I suppose.<br />

A: I can’t. Honestly, you speak English<br />

very well indeed. How long have you been<br />

here for?<br />

You: About nine months.<br />

A: You’ve picked up quite a lot, I think.<br />

Apart from being quite funny On Your Own in England proved a useful<br />

reminder to me that learning and teaching English has not always<br />

been about communicative competence. In fact, for a long time it was<br />

a question of how to avoid making mistakes, rather than expressing<br />

oneself. The title of the book conveys the idea that having to practise<br />

one’s English when alone is such a great challenge that it requires a<br />

self-help book, telling you exactly what to do and say.<br />

Today there is nothing special about being on one’s own abroad, indeed<br />

it is what we are preparing our students for, and many of them have<br />

already had such experiences. Our students know that they will have to<br />

rely on their skills in English and it is in fact their main incentive. As<br />

I have tried to show, things were clearly different in the 1960s. I am<br />

tempted to quote Alan Paton: “The past is a different country. They do<br />

things differently there.”<br />

01<br />

02<br />

03<br />

04<br />

05<br />

06<br />

07<br />

08<br />

09<br />

10<br />

11<br />

12<br />

13<br />

14<br />

15<br />

16<br />

17<br />

18<br />

19<br />

20


01<br />

02<br />

03<br />

04<br />

05<br />

06<br />

07<br />

08<br />

09<br />

10<br />

11<br />

12<br />

13<br />

14<br />

15<br />

16<br />

17<br />

18<br />

19<br />

20<br />

There are a number of things in everyday life which are very diffi cult. Buying the<br />

correct fi lter for your vacuum cleaner without actually transporting the wretched<br />

machine to the shop is diffi cult. Keeping paint brushes – I mean the sort you use<br />

when you paint your house – soft and pliant so they can be re-used after a week<br />

is, I fi nd, practically impossible. Removing the plastic off a new CD without biting<br />

it with your teeth requires a knack I do not possess. Watching the ten-minute<br />

“Vikinglotto” slot on TV without feeling despair for the future of the human race<br />

is practically impossible. And meeting deadlines when you are a textbook writer and at the same<br />

time coping with the rest of your life is, if not impossible, at best a tall order.<br />

Well, some people are used to deadlines and take them in their stride.<br />

Journalists, for example. Other people have the ability to dash off a<br />

perfect piece of work at the last minute, spurred on no doubt by the<br />

acute now-or-never pressure – the classic example being Mozart’s<br />

composition of the overture to, and probably other bits of, Don<br />

Giovanni the night before the fi rst ever performance in Prague! Heck,<br />

if you get lured into writing a textbook by Don Birger or Donna Kirsten<br />

you won’t have time to listen to Mozart for a period of several months!<br />

And these days textbook editors are communicative octopuses! They<br />

can remind you of approaching deadlines in so many ways: by email,<br />

by sms, by telephone, by conventional mail, or by summoning you to<br />

<strong>Cappelen</strong>’s headquarters in Mariboesgate. They are best at doing this<br />

on Thursdays, just when you are preparing for that warm Friday feeling<br />

of the imminent weekend. That’s when they drop the hint or bang the<br />

drum: produce, by Monday!<br />

Oh, you are one of those people who works best under pressure are you,<br />

and believe the old adage that if you want a job done you should give it<br />

to a busy person? Well, Kirsten’s last name is Aadahl and Birger’s is<br />

Nicolaysen, so call them now, and offer your services. And good luck!<br />

And don’t tell me you also believe in freedom of choice, because that’s<br />

a strand of permissiveness the Don and Donna choose to ignore. You<br />

choose story A or article B for a textbook and you can bet your bottom<br />

dollar that one of these two, or one of your colleagues on the team,<br />

has an objection to it, or has found a better story or a more appealing<br />

article. You can quietly point out the literary qualities of your choice,<br />

By Richard Peel<br />

or its topicality, or its accessibility to the target (ow!) age-group, or<br />

rant on about its other qualities, but you will be deftly outmanoeuvred<br />

by a Karin or a Kjell or a Theresa or a John or a Robert pointing out<br />

that it is too long, or too short, or too diffi cult, or too simple. And<br />

they are quite likely to add that the stuff you write yourself has too<br />

many commas, or too many brackets, or that its sentences are way too<br />

long – bad news for me, for I believe long sentences can be one of the<br />

joys of life – or too short – and short sentences can be so effective.<br />

(Can’t they?) Get rid of those clichés, they say: a tall order, bet your<br />

bottom dollar! They’ve got a point there! That’s the maddening thing.<br />

These guys are not fools!<br />

Compromise is the name of the game. Compromise and bargaining. You<br />

support me on this and I’ll support you on that. Wheeling and dealing.<br />

And, in a sense, stealing. That delightful sensation when you buy a<br />

book on the off-chance that it might contain the perfect story that you<br />

can use in a textbook, something fresh … and … yes … there it is.<br />

You send it round to the rest of the gang and, marvel of marvels, they<br />

agree! This is much more satisfying than doing a re-run of one of those<br />

textbook stalwarts, however fi ne they are. (I suspect Hemingway’s<br />

“Hills Like White Elephants” wins the prize for most-used story in<br />

Norway.) If you are one of the people who enjoyed using “Embracing<br />

Verdi”, then you can thank a moment of lucky shopping when I bought a<br />

paperback by a writer unknown to me in a second-hand bookshop in the<br />

town in Wales with more second-hand bookshops than any other town<br />

I’ve been to: Hay on Wye.


Less familiar or completely unknown writers are a spoonful of medicine against<br />

the disease that often goes with compromise: thay you produce a bland, dull<br />

book. But a lot of things get thrown out. (Editors love saying books are getting<br />

too long!) The bargaining and debating at meetings on <strong>Cappelen</strong>’s third fl oor<br />

in Mariboesgate were often fairly noisy, and we would notice doors along the<br />

usually so quiet corridors tactfully being closed as our words fl ew. And never<br />

more so than when Marcie got worked up over something, as she often did,<br />

winding herself up into a wonderful enthusiasm, then returning to her normal<br />

cruising speed with that affectionate word she enunciated with a special falling<br />

intonation “Anyway …” (How we miss her.)<br />

We could make dozens of books out of the material we rejected! There was one<br />

story I tried to put into every book I worked on, but there was always a majority<br />

against it. It practically gave me a persecution complex. No matter how strongly<br />

I argued that it was very appropriate for December, and revealed interesting<br />

aspects of the American South, and was written in a zestful style with plenty of<br />

authentic dialogue, it got the thumbs down. I moaned and groaned, but it was no<br />

use. Of course, it contains some words that used to be taboo, but this would not<br />

cause anyone who has read The Snapper to raise an eyelid. No, that wasn’t the<br />

reason. The others just didn’t like it too much! So “The Birds for Christmas” never<br />

got an airing. Oh well, I managed to veto anything by Jeffrey Archer getting into<br />

any book I was involved with! (And anyway Mark Richard’s story can now be found<br />

on the internet.)<br />

There were practical problems at our meetings, too. Robert Mikkelsen, for<br />

example, always managed to infl ict bodily injury on the coffee machine so that it<br />

refused to generate more than a pathetic dribble of liquid of indeterminate taste<br />

and lukewarm temperature. Another big problem was the air. Windowless rooms<br />

do tend to be stuffy and debilitating. Amazing that we produced such exciting<br />

books! Mind you, we encouraged <strong>Cappelen</strong> to send us to comfortable hotels now<br />

and then for working weekends!<br />

Another thing: in the midst of delicate negotiations and discussions of, say, the<br />

sorts of activities we wanted to accompany a text about multicultural America,<br />

in would breeze Trond and start singing snatches from 1960s pop songs, imitating<br />

Joni Mitchel or Mick Jagger, instead of doing something useful like planning good<br />

marketing strategies and seminars at exciting venues.<br />

I hope this little review of a corner of my life (approximately fi fteen years in the<br />

<strong>Cappelen</strong> English stable) shows how much I miss it – and all the people I worked<br />

with – now that the ripeness of my years has eased me out of those airless<br />

rooms and leisure-free weekends. Actually Trond, as everyone knows, organises<br />

extraordinarily enjoyable seminars, at which it was a real pleasure to meet our<br />

“customers”. And Donna and Don are among the most patient people I know!<br />

One last thought. No more will I have to try to replace with something more<br />

original those tired metaphors “melting pot” and “salad bowl” that make<br />

American history into a kitchen! As I said at the beginning, some things in life<br />

are tricky.<br />

01<br />

02<br />

03<br />

04<br />

05<br />

06<br />

07<br />

08<br />

09<br />

10<br />

11<br />

12<br />

13<br />

14<br />

15<br />

16<br />

17<br />

18<br />

19<br />

20


En god nyhet for elevene dine<br />

– <strong>Cappelen</strong> introduserer en ordbok de enkelt kan finne frem i<br />

Herbert Svenkerud, Kari Bjerkeng, Anne Lerø<br />

Engelsk skoleordbok er spesielt utviklet for bruk i ungdomsskolen, men egner seg også godt for alle<br />

elever som har problemer med å fi nne fram i ordbøker.<br />

Layout og grafi ske virkemidler er valgt for å sikre en så oversiktlig fremstilling som mulig. Målet er at<br />

elevene lett og raskt skal fi nne det de leter etter. Nytt for denne ordboken er at det er innført en egen blåfarge<br />

for oppslagord, varianter, betydningsnumre og uttrykk.<br />

Under behandlingen av et oppslagsord gir et nytt betydningnummer en ny linje, og dette, sammen med<br />

blåfargen på betydningsnummeret, gjør betydningsinndelingen ekstra tydelig.<br />

Oversettelser som er gruppert etter et betydningsnummer, hører naturlig sammen. Ofte er<br />

betydningsnummeret etterfulgt av en kursivert, kort og presis beskrivelse av betydningen. Slike<br />

spesifi serende opplysninger kommer i parentes foran én eller fl ere oversettelser. I tillegg kan<br />

betydningsforskjeller tydeliggjøres ved hjelp av forklarende parenteser etter oversettelsene.<br />

Til sammen skulle dette sikre at alle betydningsforskjeller og betydningsnyanser kommer klart<br />

frem.<br />

Engelsk skoleordbok har et spesielt fokus på uttrykk og faste vendinger. Disse er alfabetisk<br />

ordnet i egne seksjoner under tilhørende oppslagsord. Ordboken prioriterer med andre ord<br />

det idiomatiske, noe som er særlig viktig i språkopplæringen. Også i uttrykksseksjonene<br />

gjør blåfargen det lett for øyet å fi nne frem. Og på samme måte som for betydningsnumrene<br />

gir et nytt uttrykk en ny linje. Forutsigbarheten i dette, kombinert med de grafi ske<br />

virkemidlene, fører til at man sparer mye tid når man leter seg frem.<br />

Ordutvalget tar sikte på å dekke de helt sentrale ordene i engelsk og norsk; akkurat de ordene elevene dine trenger. Ordboken<br />

inneholder en engelsk-norsk del og en norsk-engelsk del, hver med ca. 16 000 oppslagsord.<br />

Faktasider og minigrammatikk i midtdelen<br />

Praktisk format, faller godt i hånden<br />

Slitesterkt fl exibind, tåler tøff behandling<br />

ISBN 82-02-23336-4<br />

Pris kr 175,-<br />

Vil du stå som mottaker av fagavisen (gratis!)? – Send en e-post til vgsinfo@cappelen.no

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!