Question For English Teachers

[lannarebirth]

Please, can one of you explain to me what the thinking is when assigning "abridged" versions of classic literature? The books say "abridged" on the cover, but truthfully more than 80% of the content has been removed. It looks more like an "Archie" comic book than a Charles Dickens novel.

I understand there are a lot of distractions for children these days; bad TV, bad internet, etc, but must we include bad "literature"? There are literally thousands of great short stories or novellas you could assign if you feel the text is too voluminous (I'm assuming that's why the shortened version and not because the teacher is too lazy or the child too stupid). Wouldn't it be better to read a quality short piece than an eviscerated "classic"? I don't want my girls getting what some editor thinks they should know from "To Kill A Mockingbird". I want then to read it all, to absorb it, to process and think about it. Please, share with me your thoughts.

Edited September 12, 2008 by lannarebirth

[PeaceBlondie]

Great question, Lannarebirth. Do your children go to a Thai-only or a bilingual or an international school? My guess is not an international school, becaise I doubt such schools use such heavily abridged version. I guess it is not a Thai-only school, because even M5 and M6 students seldom read English texts as long as a novela.

For example, non-native students such as Thais would be lucky or blessed to even read a crude abridgement. Dickens, for example, wrote A Christmas Carol. He wrote it to a British audience without using Christian terms, though the theme itself was clearly steeped in Christian background. Who in Thailand needs that explained in great detail, when they are primarily just trying to learn the language and a few points about the culture? Even international students have to read about the French Revolution, Aztecs. Mayans, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, etc.

Buy the originals for your girls (Gecko Books is the only place you might find them) and spend 128,000 baht for a library. Then find thousands of hours of spare reading time for your girls. They do not need TV, football, shopping, etc.

I have seen those abridged books (Cambridge, Oxford presses) used effectively with non-native students in Chiang Mai international schools. Some older students go on, for example, to read an entire book such as Fielding's Lord of the Flies (an entire semester at Prem).

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Our home countries no longer teach many texts that our grandparents were required to learn in Latin grammar schools.

What schools in Thailand have room for so much additional reading of full English texts - even novelas - in their curriculum?

[lannarebirth]

Thanks for your response PB. I should have mentioned, they attend Lanna Int. School, and not for much longer if I can help it.

I've purchased over $1,500 worth of good books for them to read, plus paid exhorbinant shipping. I'll spend much more if they get even part way through them. One showing some interest, the other much less so. Many of these books, they think they've read already, because the comic book version had been assigned to them.

I just want a love of reading to take hold. I don't care if they read these books right now, but I'd much rather they read something short and good, and important than a gutted masterpiece. Anything good will keep them reading. I just can't see how something that's missing 80% of what the author meant to convey, can be considered "good". Can anyone explain to me the school and or teachers reasoning here?

[mopenyang]

Better they be exposed to them in an "abridged" version than not exposed to them at all. The full version can always be found for them later. Also, sometimes, it is a question of teaching time allotted the teacher to cover "x" number of works.

[Briggsy]

I don't know how old your children are but I am a well-educated and literate Brit educated in Britain who found Dickens' verbosity impenetrable until my late teens. I think PeaceBlondie's post regarding cultural background is very articulately put. Expecting your children to read and love Dickens is unrealistic. If their English is faultless, I would go for Watership Down or Harry Potter. Books aimed at their age range without a huge historical and cultural baggage are far more likely to entice to become readers.

[lannarebirth]

I don't know how old your children are but I am a well-educated and literate Brit educated in Britain who found Dickens' verbosity impenetrable until my late teens. I think PeaceBlondie's post regarding cultural background is very articulately put. Expecting your children to read and love Dickens is unrealistic. If their English is faultless, I would go for Watership Down or Harry Potter. Books aimed at their age range without a huge historical and cultural baggage are far more likely to entice to become readers.

I was just using Dickens as an example. One doesn't need to abridge a Jack London or Mark Twain book for children ages 12 and 14. Their english is perfect but their attention span is growing shorter and shorter. If a book doesn't "hook" them in the first chapter they don't finish it. They don't even know the books they're reading in school aren't the original version and don't even understand what I'm talking about when I ask "if you enjoyed that would you like to read the original?". They've read all the Harry Potter books, but that was a cultural phenomenon and really had nothing to do with love of reading. I've met many kids who read Harry Potter and never picked up a book before or since.

I just can't see any reason for this. It's as if the schools are intentionally trying to produce inferior graduates. You know, they don't have to enjoy every book they are assigned to read. Finishing your assigned task even if it isn't fun is a part of a good education too. Sometimes one discovers they really enjoy something that had thought they wouldn't. We'll never know now.

[wangsuda]

I don't know about Thailand, but I can relate to what you are saying in regards to my teaching in California. When I taught literature in Los Angeles, we had to use special abridged editions of certain books. This was mainly due to the "PC crowd." Huckleberry Fin had certain words and passages edited out. I couldn't teach The Legend of Sleepy Hallow due to its sexual innuendos. And I got in serious trouble by introducing my students to unedited historical literary artifacts from WWII. Perhaps the abridged versions of books that your child's school uses are from a US PC crown editing team. And then again, perhaps the abridged version is all modern children can handle, since books, in no way, can compete with video games.

[CosmicSurfer]

First my Wife watched the movie "Little Women", with only English subtitles... Then I gave her a Beginners "Abridged" edition of the book.... Now she's reading the full 'original' version.

Baby steps... Works wonders.

I have the same plan for "The Wizard of Oz".

CS

[mopenyang]

Exactly.

There is no guarantee that an original version will "hook" any reader quicker than an abridged version.

Original versions are usually readily available and can always be found and read later if the student or parent are interested.

The use of abridged versions is very common in university survey of literature courses with original version readings often restricted to literature majors. The theory being that it is better that the student receive even an "abridged" introduction to the works than no introduction.

[PeaceBlondie]

One of my favorite literacy authors is the American professor who wrote Cultural Literacy - Dr. E. D. Hirsch, Jr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_literacy He pointed out that you do not need to read even an abridged version if you understand literary references to them. I never read Homer or much Shakespeare, but I know their most important works to know about Hamlet and Oedipus, Helen of Troy, etc. I memorized Lincoln's Gettysburg address without realizing it was a bloody president's excuse for making Americans kill each other. I could probably tutor international students blindfolded, without ever having finished a book by Shakespeare or Dickens

I only met one Thai matayom student who liked to sit alone in his room and read. For that, he was considered odd..

[Ijustwannateach]

Unfortunately, though, this discussion does highlight the unpleasant fact that language teaching as it is practiced in Thailand is not really up to par. If I was a French major in a U.S. or British institution, I'm sure that I would be reading original texts very quickly, by the third year at least, and I would be expected to engage in very advanced writing in the fourth year. (This is assuming some exposure previously at the high school level, but in regard to English that is available in Thailand to most students who go on to university).

However, the universities here don't want to have their students 'lose face' by facing the harsh reality of their relatively low function. They save that for the IELTS....

[otherstuff1957]

I had my M4 EP students read abridged versions of Mark Twain, Jack London, R. L. Stevenson, O. Henry, etc... last year. Why? Two reasons: 1) I didn't have the time to have them read the full versions and I wanted to expose them to these authors to try to instill a love of reading in them and give them some familiarity with Western Lit. 2) Some of the kids were struggling with modern English, much less 19th century idioms! Abridging the texts and updating some of the more obscure language was the only way the whole class could actually read and comprehend the works.

Hopefully, they will have enjoyed the stories they read enough to seek out the full versions in the future.

[PeaceBlondie]

Exactly. They do not understand that the American buffalo has shaggy coat, Huck Finn ran away with a slave man, how cold the winters were, the industrial revolution, women's rights, political histories, why Lincoln insisted on wholesale slaughter to preserve a government, etc. Just let them get the idea of the story and the author's writing style. Even Kipling's Jungle Book is not very Thai.

[Scott]

I don't particularly like the abridged versions of books, but we use them at our school. We also have a couple of full length novels the students must read before G. 12. The shortened versions give them a good foundation in English and a broader perspective than the full length novels. I wouldn't fault a school for using them, but like the OP, I wouldn't want my kids to think this is well-written literature.

Taking on novels and literature can be done at home by the parents. Schools have to teach a whole bunch of subjects and different people consider different subjects to be more important than others. A problem here is that in an international setting you still have the problem of 'whose' literature is the best--American, British etc. The shorter books can satisfy a broader audience.

[PeaceBlondie]

The trick here is that Lannarebirth's girls go to an international school. Every subject is taught in English, and Thai may be just an elective. From what I know about Lanna, APIS, Prem, etc., they will have to read the full length classics in English as they get in high school. Not at all what most Thai students read, even at decent private schools attended by the Thais between the 90th and 97th percentile, socio-economically.

[lannarebirth]

Exactly. They do not understand that the American buffalo has shaggy coat, Huck Finn ran away with a slave man, how cold the winters were, the industrial revolution, women's rights, political histories, why Lincoln insisted on wholesale slaughter to preserve a government, etc. Just let them get the idea of the story and the author's writing style. Even Kipling's Jungle Book is not very Thai.

You know PB, when I read these books in mt American junior and senior highs, I didn't understand a lot of those things either. One picks it up through context and cross perspectives. You don't pick it up when some onepicks out the 29% they think you should know.

[lannarebirth]

I don't particularly like the abridged versions of books, but we use them at our school. We also have a couple of full length novels the students must read before G. 12. The shortened versions give them a good foundation in English and a broader perspective than the full length novels. I wouldn't fault a school for using them, but like the OP, I wouldn't want my kids to think this is well-written literature.

Taking on novels and literature can be done at home by the parents. Schools have to teach a whole bunch of subjects and different people consider different subjects to be more important than others. A problem here is that in an international setting you still have the problem of 'whose' literature is the best--American, British etc. The shorter books can satisfy a broader audience.

Well, they didn't teach abridged versions when we went ti school. Are they saying the kids are too stupid now to do what you and me did ? Whose fault is that? Does your school have a book/reading club, or a Summer reading program? Does it have a list of books every child should have read prior to graduating?

[lannarebirth]

The trick here is that Lannarebirth's girls go to an international school. Every subject is taught in English, and Thai may be just an elective. From what I know about Lanna, APIS, Prem, etc., they will have to read the full length classics in English as they get in high school. Not at all what most Thai students read, even at decent private schools attended by the Thais between the 90th and 97th percentile, socio-economically.

Well, that's encouraging PB. English literacy is not their issue. They've never been to America, but they sound just like any kid in a Seattle suburb.

[PeaceBlondie]

I learned about bison, Indians, cowboys, cold winters, etc., long before I went to one of the top ten state high schools in America. But yes, kids back home are so much dumber now, that they had to dumb down the SAT scores, in 1995. For my freshman uni courses, we started with Plato, Shakespeare, and Marx - translated only into 18th century English, unabridged. From what E. D. Hirsch, Jr., wrote around 1992, even natives starting at junior college no longer recognize Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. Even in the 1950's, there were Cliff's Notes and Classics Illustrated. But the best international schools are far more rigorous about English reading skills than Thai schools.

[mopenyang]

What's really interesting here is that this issue does not seem to be at the forefront of academic debates. I've done several searches and have not been able to find any discussion relating to the teaching of abridged vs. unabridged novels with the exception of a blog with one comment on it:

http://www.classicnovelsblog.com/2008/07/u...s-abridged.html

On the other hand, there are innumerable entries regarding the sale and use of abridged novels by students and teachers.

[PeaceBlondie]

I have a friend who did a lot of tutoring, below ninth grade (matayom 3) to non-native speakers. She never had time to teach reading using full length books. Students did not have the time or the ability, even in international school. Even now, as an aspiring novelist, I am advised to read lots of the greatest novelists. They want me to read a million words, and my attention span is good for ten pages, maximum. I will read a million words in 32 years.

[mahtin]

I have a friend who did a lot of tutoring, below ninth grade (matayom 3) to non-native speakers. She never had time to teach reading using full length books. Students did not have the time or the ability, even in international school. Even now, as an aspiring novelist, I am advised to read lots of the greatest novelists. They want me to read a million words, and my attention span is good for ten pages, maximum. I will read a million words in 32 years.

Congratulations on your 11,500th post.

How many words is that?