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Both music and literature represent two important objectives inherent in each culture: rhythm and storytelling. Additionally, their affective power is undeniable: sometimes only a song or a poem can express our inner feelings better than we could have done on our own. The most important incidents in life are accompanied by music and song: birthdays, falling in love (“This is our song!”), marriages, funerals – basically, being extremely happy or indescribably sad. There seems to be a specific soundtrack to the story of our life. Identities, no matter if individual, group or national identity, are strongly connected to music and this is not exclusively true for national anthems. But music is more than just an everyday-life background noise; music originates from a specific cultural and temporal background, it is influenced by and vice versa influences cultures, it is used as a distinguishing mark between groups and as a source of identity within cultures.
Literature – in this course Thomas’ The Keeper of Secrets – provides a rich environment to discover how identities are constructed, which prerequisites and incidents label our identity, and what eventually forms the person we are. Additionally, literature is able to improve empathy in its readers, one of the skills we certainly want our pupils to develop and improve. The Keeper of Secrets is a book that interconnects music, literary fiction, storytelling and identity construction with ICC-acquisition.
Both music and literature provide a rich environment of teaching and learning opportunities. Both encourage applications for a majority of the competences we want to foster within our EFL classrooms - according to the CEFR as well as the Lehrplan NRW it is important to teach not only a language, but to additionally understand the culture(s) this language derives from. Similar to language, music and literature do not float through the universe on their own and unconnected; they originate from a specific background, they are influenced by and vice versa influence cultures, both can be used as a distinguishing mark and as a source of identity formation. Obviously, music and literature are extremely interesting topics when focussing on ICC in EFL classrooms for learners of all ages. This seminar expects you to get involved actively and will give you the opportunity to observe theory turning into practice.
Note: additional reading material will be provided via Moodle2 and within the sessions.
Please note that it is expected that you will have read the book before the first session.
Book: Thomas, Julie. The Keeper of Secrets. New York: HarperCollins, 2013. |
