magazine_2001-1

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Lederinnhold

Kjære leser,

Så går nok et skoleår mot hell og det tærer vel kanskje både

på kreativiteten hos dere og interessen hos elevene. Med det i

tankene har vi denne gangen laget en ny vri på en av artiklene

i [�mægə�zi:n]. I stedet for vår faste spalte Pass It on! har

John Anthony skrevet en fyldig artikkel om “The Royal

Canadian Mounted Police” med tilhørende oppgaver, m.a.o. et

ferdig undervisningsopplegg. Canada er et spennende land,

men får ofte lite oppmerksomhet, også i undervisningen.

Kanskje dette undervisningsopplegget kan være noe for

vårslappe og en smule “læringstrøtte” elever?

Canada, ja. For oss i forlaget har vinteren vært preget av

savnet etter Marcie Madden Austad som døde i januar etter

lang tids sykdom. Marcie var Canada, så sammensatt, så spen-

nende, et kontinent hvor det var stadig nye ting å oppdage, nye

ting å lære. Etter å ha jobbet sammen med Marcie om lære-

bøker i engelsk i snart 10 år, føles det tomt når jeg nå sitter

med ferdige bøker som hun har skrevet manus til, men som

hun aldri får se. Denne gangen får jeg ikke oppleve at hun

entusiastisk blar i de nye bøkene, høre henne si “Oh yeah, it’s

very nice, but why didn’t we…” Hun var aldri 100% fornøyd,

det var alltid noe hun så som kunne ha vært gjort bedre. Men

det er godt å vite at arbeidet og entusiasmen hennes vil være

med å prege undervisningen i år framover. Vi er mange som

savner henne, og i dette nummeret vil dere finne et minneord

av en av hennes forfatterkolleger.

Og 100% fornøyd er heller ikke vi når det gjelder [�mægə�zi:n],

det er en god lærdom å ta med seg fra Marcie. Vi ser på det

siste nummeret, og sier: “Neste nummer skal bli enda bedre.”

Om vi lykkes, det er opp til deg som leser å bedømme.

Dessuten kan du påvirke det ved å komme med innspill til oss!

Er det noe du brenner for, er det noe som gleder eller ergrer

deg når det gjelder faget, læreplaner etc.? Send oss noen ord,

vi vil gjerne at dere engelsklærere skal kommunisere med

hverandre i dette forumet også.

Apropos læreplaner, de har skapt en del hodebry for oss denne

våren. Som du sikkert har observert, har skolene nå fått et

høringsutkast til ny læreplan for engelsk VK1 og VK2. Dette er

positivt, det har vært stor misnøye, spesielt med innholdet i

VK2. Men vi har fått et problem i fanget: da vi sto klar til å

sette i gang trykkingen av en gjennomgripende revidert

Patterns og Projects, begynte ryktene om revisjon av lærepla-

nen å svirre. Etter å ha sett høringsutkastet, besluttet vi å

vente nok et år med utgivelsen av disse. Men, du kan glede deg

til revidert læreplan gjøres gjeldende fra 2002, da skal du få

læremidler som er tilpasset planen!

I påvente av det, finner du forhåpentligvis noe som er nytt og

spennende både for deg og elevene i [�mægə�zi:n]!

[�mægə�zi:n]

CAPPELEN UNDERVISNING

videregående skole,

Postboks 350 Sentrum,

0101 Oslo

Telefon: 22 36 51 77/5195

E-post: [email protected]

Ansvarlig redaktør:

Kirsten Aadahl

Redaksjon:

Birger Nicolaysen

Produksjon: Prepress

03

More Poetry in the Classroom

Read it!

av Erling Gilje

09

14

15

07

13

16

Raw Carrots and Mashed Potatoes

av John Charles Anthony

Bajan, Cajun and Creole – Lifestyle and

Language av Gunnel Bergstøm

Call the Embassy!

Remembering Marcie

av Robert Mikkelsen

Who Owns the Zebra?

… …

… …

Magazine 2003-1:Magazine 3/01 12-09-07 09:34 Side 2

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More Poetry in the Classroom

i…am…canadian!

i…am…canadian!

I suppose you would have to be a Canadian to

understand what I mean when I say raw car-

rots and mashed potatoes. No, it’s not the

Canadian national meal. In fact, I’m not sure

we even have a national meal! Nor is it a veg-

e tarian recipe. This expression dates back to

the days of my youth, growing up in both

Winnipeg and on the Niagara peninsula, when

Raw Carrots and Mashed Potatoes was a

child’s rendition of Royal Canadian Mounted

Police (RCMP). This wasn’t meant as a deroga-

tory reference to our magnificent men in their

red coats and peaked caps, just our penchant

for finding other interesting word combina-

tions for popular abbreviations. For example,

the RCAF wasn’t the Royal Canadian Air Force

but the Royal Canadian Air Farce, which was

also the name of a superb Canadian satire

group. There were other names for the Royal

Canadian Mounted Police, but let’s keep this

clean.

Canadian inferiority complex

I grew up in the English-speaking part of

Canada that I think suffered unjustly from an

inferiority complex. Our mother was England,

which had swinging London, Liverpool, the

Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Twiggy, that poet

Bill Shake speare, history, good movies, funny

comedians, you name it. Our big brother was

our neighbour to the south which had New

York, Hollywood, and a lot more people and

money. So we felt like a poor son and poor lit-

tle brother. But in the midst of this humble

nascent nation we had a true claim to fame –

our men in red, especially when they rode

their horses to music. The RCMP musical ride,

an exhibition on horseback set to music, was

a popular attraction in Canada and abroad.

This was truly something to be proud of.

The history of the RCMP

Compared to Europe and the USA, Canada’s

history is not very violent, nor, surprisingly

enough, is the history of our federal police

force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

This, in my mind, is also something to be

proud of.

John Charles Anthony is a Canadian who for

unspecified reasons has been enduring the

climate in Trondheim for many, many years.

He has travelled throughout Europe, as young

people of his generation were wont to do, and

lived and worked for a few years in England

before continuing his university studies in

Canada and then moving to Trondheim. He

teaches English at Trondheim Katedralskole,

which he finds inspiring and enjoyable in

spite of the weather.

Background text

with exercises

for students

You have been warned:

what follows is an arti-

cle about some famous

Canadians. Before you read it, just note

down a few things or characteristics you

think of when someone says "Canada" or

"Canadians". Then turn over your piece of

paper and read this article.


The RCMP was established more than a centu-

ry ago as the North-West Mounted Police, in

what was intended as a "temporary" experi-

ment in policing the less populated areas of

the emerging nation. Canada did not have a

major police force in its early days. In fact

when Canada was officially born, with

Confederation in 1867, the two largest cities,

Montreal and Toronto, had few appointed con-

stables. Federal laws were enforced by the

tiny Dominion Police, while small towns and

rural communities had no regular police force

at all. When laws had to be enforced, consta-

bles would be appointed by the court on a

temporary basis.

But the need for a law enforcement agency

was evident. Settlers were streaming into the

sparsely populated areas, land was being

allocated, farms were being established, and

where there’s agriculture, borders and owner-

ship, there’s trouble. Police were needed for

land settlement issues, to protect property

and, ostensibly at least, to protect the rights

of the Aboriginal peoples.

To answer this need the North-West Mounted

Police force (NWMP) was established in 1873

to oversee settlement in the western territo-

ries. The idea was that this force would be

disbanded once the area had been settled

peacefully.

The original force numbered 150, but was soon

increased to 300. The uniform was bright red,

a colour that has come to symbolize Canada's

federal police ever since, with white gloves

and a peaked cap – very visible, very striking.

The Great March

In 1874 a force of mounted policemen left Fort

Dufferin in Manitoba on a journey known as

the Great March across the Canadian plains.

The force was made up of young inexperienced

men with little equipment and an unreliable

map. One of their goals was to stop the ille-

gal trade of whisky at Fort Whoop-Up (I am

not making that name up), a fort run by

Americans on Canadian soil, 800 miles away.

The land stretched far and wide, beyond the

imagination, and here these brave mounted

policemen were the only law.

When I think back on our history now, I think

how utterly ridiculous this sounds today. We

are talking about a country that is in land

area the second largest in the world. Winters

were harsh, bitterly cold, long and, in those

days, sometimes fatal. A blizzard could sweep

in, almost without warning, stopping men and

horses in their tracks and leaving them dan-

gerously disoriented. The distances between

settlements were great, and in many cases it

was a distance that had yet to be properly

charted. And over this immense area some 300

hearty souls were to enforce the law on horse-

back. With the settlers coming from all over

Europe, language and communication was

most likely also a problem. It must have been

a thankless job, but certainly an exciting

challenge for the rugged individualist! Yet the

force prevailed, surviving the forces of nature

to establish the law without major violence,

helping Canada develop into the great nation

it is today.

The railway and the gold rush

In 1883 the force was increased to 500 men

and its duties were expanded. One of its new

responsibilities was to preserve the peace

during the construction of the Canadian

Pacific Railway. This was no easy task as

land was often acquired, some times swin-

dled, by speculators as they anticipated the

location of the approaching trans-Canada rail-

way. Careers and destinies stood in the bal-

ance as the railway engineers, for numerous

reasons, changed their plans from day to day.

After an uprising in western Canada in 1885,

partly in reaction to an indifferent federal

government and the high freight prices the

monopoly railway was charging, the NWMP

grew to a 1000-member force.

Major events such as the Yukon gold rush at

the turn of the century made the need for a

permanent national police force more appar-

ent and, by then, the NWMP was being accept-

ed as a permanent institution. In 1904, King

Edward VII added the term "Royal" to the

force’s name in recognition of its services to

the Crown, and in 1920, the RNWMP became

the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and was

officially expanded into a national police

force.

In 1928, the RCMP began performing police

duties in other areas than federal policing as

it helped both provinces and municipalities

with their policing needs.

Canada’s Constitution defines law enforce-

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Foto: Scanpix


ment as a provincial responsibility. But a

majority of provinces decided they could meet

this responsibility most effectively through

the services of the RCMP.

The RCMP today

The RCMP therefore serves as the provincial

police in eight of Canada’s ten provinces. The

province of Ontario, where I once lived, has

its own police force. Sounds confusing? When

I was growing up in St. Catharines, a town the

size of Trondheim, I can remember there being

the St. Catharines Municipal Police

Department, the Niagara Regional Police, the

OPP, or Ontario Provincial Police (we had

nasty names for them), and the RCMP for fed-

eral crimes. So we didn't see much of the

RCMP, unless we went to one of the musical

rides. The RCMP’s presence would be more vis-

ible in the rural communities, away from the

big cities, most of which hug as far south

close to the border between Canada and the

U.S. as possible. As I said, Canadian winters

are real killers.

Today the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is

headed by a commissioner who reports to the

federal government and to the Attorneys-

General, the chief law officers, of those

provinces where the RCMP provides provincial

police services.

With more than 16,000 police officers and

about 5,000 civilian employees, the force

maintains six crime detection laboratories

across Canada and a computerized police

information centre in Ottawa. The RCMP also

maintains a training academy and RCMP

museum in Regina, and the Canadian Police

College in Ottawa, which offers advanced

courses to members of other police forces in

Canada and around the world.

So what does the RCMP do?

Below are four of its main duties:

• The RCMP acts as the municipal police force

in about 200 Canadian cities and towns.

• The force provides provincial police servi c-

es in the Yukon, Northwest Territories and 8

of Canada’s 10 provinces (in addition to

Ontario, Quebec has its own provincial

police force).

• The RCMP enforces about 140 federal laws

dealing with narcotics, commercial crime

(what we often refer to as white-collar

crime), immigration and passport control,

customs and excise and counterfeiting.

• The RCMP represents Canada internation al-

ly as a member of the International

Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL).

The force has 30 liaison agents in foreign

countries.

An anecdote

Well, that tells you a little about the RCMP.

Before closing, I would like to share with you

a brief anecdote about the RCMP, something

remembered from my Canadian history class

that I can just barely pull from the back

regions of my mind.

One day, long ago, when the trans-Canada rail-

way was being built, some local natives, led

by their chief, objected to the arrival of the

ugly black "Iron Horse". Of course they had

every right for their concern, and today would

be hailed as true ecologists and defenders of

a fast disappearing nature. But, needless to

say, in those days there was no stopping the

tide of progress. The building of the trans-

Canada railway was one of the most impor-

tant events in Canadian history, indeed, with-

out this railway I feel Canada might never

have come into being. It was the link that tied

the country together and with the telegraph

lines that ran parallel to it, it was the main

means of communication, the way of getting a

message back to intransigent Ottawa where

the federal government was centred.

Now these natives saw no good coming from

this rumbling, belching monster, so with his

family and followers around him, the chief

pitched his teepee over the railway line and

refused to move. One constable and his aide

were dispatched on horseback to address the

problem. As I remember it, rather anti-climat-

ically, the constable told the chief to move,

he did not, so the constable kicked his teepee

down, the chief and his followers left and the

incident was resolved.

The Canadian approach

You might be wondering what the point of this

simple story is and I’m sure you can’t imagine

a movie of the month being made out of it. But

that is basically my point. While I can remem-

ber years ago that the British tabloids and

American newspapers made fun of boring, no-

news Canada, I am proud of this simple solu-

tion to a potentially dangerous situation. Now

of course the reason why only one constable,

with his aide, was dispatched to address a

potentially dangerous situation might have

been because no more constables were to be

found within a day’s or week’s ride of the area

in question, or perhaps there weren’t enough

horses to go around. But even so, this story

reinforces my belief that my native country is

a relatively peaceful and sensible place ruled

by law and a sense of fairness, not by the gun.

I see sending one constable to handle the sit-

uation as the typical low-key Canadian

approach to a problem; if you don't overreact,

the situation will not escalate. I can grateful-

ly leave the mass killings and weird sex

crimes to the American and British press –

give me boring old Canada any time.

So, back in the days of my youth, when we

looked for our typically Canadian symbols,

something that set us apart from the rest of

the world, especially from mom and big broth-

er, we would turn to our red-coated heroes of

the RCMP whose motto – Maintiens le droit or

"Maintain the Right" – continues to be a dis-

tinctive symbol of Canada today.

EXERCISES

1

The writer uses some words that are probably

new to you. Skim through the text and find the

following words (see list A below), and read

the context where the words are used to help

you understand the meaning of each word.

Then match each word with the correct defini-

tion in list B (the definitions reflect the use

of the word in this article).

LIST A – words:

a) nascent b) derogatory c) penchant d) inferi-

ority e) ostensibly f) Aboriginal g) oversee h)

disbanded i) individualist j) numerous k)

excise l) counterfeiting m) liaison n) intransi-

gent o) swindle p) provincial q) low-key

LIST B – definitions:

- uncompromising; unwilling to change

- to detract; designed or tending to belittle or

look down upon

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- beginning to develop

- to all outward appearances; seeming

- restrained; reduced intensity

- original; belonging to a locality by birth or

origin

- being lower in position, degree, rank or

merit; being or regarded as below the level

of another

- to have or exercise the charge, direction and

oversight of; supervise

- relating to a province

- break up the organization of; to cease to

exist as a unit

- one that pursues a markedly independent

course

- consisting of a great number

- an attraction to a particular activity; strong

inclination

- copy in order to deceive; print false money

- communication between groups; a contact

between groups

- to obtain something by dishonesty or trickery

- tax

2

We sometimes talk about national traits or a

"national psyche". The writer of this article

mentions a few sides of the Canadian psyche

that he remembers. Scan the text to find what

he says about Canada and Canadians. Now

find that bit of paper you scribbled on before

reading the article. Do the writer’s views

agree with what you wrote?

3

Work in pairs. Without re-reading the article,

try to tell each other what each of the follow-

ing had to do (positively or negatively) with

the development of the RCMP:

- railways

- settlement of land

- Native Americans

- huge distances

- whisky

- parades and music

- bitterly cold winters

Afterwards, if you need to, go back to the arti-

cle and find out more. Then tell each other

why mother and brother are introduced at the

beginning of the article.

4

Getting to know Canada!

a) The article mentions that Canada has ten

provinces and two territories. Write down the

names of the ten provinces and find out the

names of their capital cities and write each of

these beside the name of its province. Find a

map and locate the provinces, territories and

capital cities on it. Then draw your own ten-

minute map of Canada, putting in as much of

this newly-found information as you can. (A "ten-

minute map" is a simple map which you can only

spend ten minutes on – not a second more!)

Choose one of these cities that you would like

to learn more about and search the Internet

for information.

b) It might be interesting to look at local

Canadian newspapers on the Internet. Who

knows, perhaps the papers will show that

Canada is not quite so innocent as the writer

of this article might have us believe.

One place to start is www.canoe.ca

This is a central address for all the newspa-

pers under the Sun newspaper chain. You

should be able to click on the Toronto Sun,

Calgary Sun, Edmonton Sun, Ottawa Sun,

Winnipeg Sun or the Vancouver Sun from this

website.

Other large newspapers include: the Toronto

Star, the Calgary Herald, London Free Press,

Winnipeg Free Press, Montreal Gazette,

Montreal Mirror, Halifax Herald, Leader Post

(Regina) and in French Le Devoir from

Montreal.

Take a look at local news, entertainment and

culture sections, advertisements, movie and

book reviews etc. to see what is trendy and

topical in the city you chose, and discuss in

class what this tells you about Canada in gen-

e ral.

c) Find out more about the RCMP. You can

start from these websites:

http://www.intouch.bc.ca/coqrcmp/

This is the website of an RCMP force in

British Columbia. You can check this sight out

to see what a local RCMP police force is doing

on a daily basis.

http://www.rcmpmarchwest.com/

This is an excellent site. Here you can read

more about the Great March of 1874 that the

article refers to. The more you dig into this

site, the more you can learn about the RCMP

and the men who created and built it. Many of

the major events in Canadian history are

described here. Try the site "famous charac-

ters" for example. This site will tell you all

about the Great March as the often raw

recruits made their way west to establish the

law in outposts far from the settled east of

Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto.

Another interesting site to visit is

http://www.rcmp-learning.org/fr-welc.htm

which is the RCMP's own on-line university.

Take a look at available jobs in the RCMP and

check their links to other sites to learn lots

more about what is going on in law enforce-

ment areas in Canada.

KEY TO EXERCISE 1:

a) beginning to develop

b) to detract; designed or tending to belittle

or look down upon

c) an attraction to a particular activity;

strong inclination

d) being lower in position, degree, rank or

merit; being or regarded as below the level

of another

e) to all outward appearances; seeming

f) original; belonging to a locality by birth or

origin

g) to have or exercise the charge, direction

and oversight of; supervise

h) break up the organization of; to cease to

exist as a unit

i) one that pursues a markedly independent

course

j) consisting of a great number

k) tax

l) copy in order to deceive; print false money

m) communication between groups; a contact

between groups

n) uncompromising; unwilling to change

o) to obtain something by dishonesty or trick-

ery

p) relating to a province

q) restrained; reduced intensity

KEY TO EXERCISE 2:

The author mentions the following traits:

inferiority complex, relatively non-violent,

low-key approach, fairness.

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Do you recognize this as something you might have said to your students

at one time or another? And have your students ever reported back to

you, saying that they couldn’t reach anyone at the embassy, or that they

didn’t get any help, or that the person at the other end was cranky or

simply not too interested in their (truly fascinating) project about

Native Americans/Ernest Hemingway/Thanksgiving/Congress etc.?

This is something quite a lot of teachers probably experience when

their days get too stressful and crowded for them to follow up each

and every student’s needs for background material. But spare a

thought for "the person at the other end". We have taken the time to

talk to a couple of them about their experiences with Norwegian stu-

dents and teachers.

A visit to the United States embassy

The American embassy in Oslo is an impressively ugly sight on an oth-

er wise bright and sunny February day! Sturdily constructed in concrete

and reinforced glass, the word fortress easily springs to mind. "Safety

first!" is clearly the motto for the guards (US Marines, no less) that

greet us at the entrance as well. However, the atmosphere is friendly

and relaxed, relatively speaking, and after a quick inspection we are

allowed to enter. Mind you, we do have an appointment – otherwise it

would be near to impossible to get in.

Line Anne Hovdenakk and Petter Næss work as IRC specialists at the

embassy. "IRC" stands for Information Resource Center, the unit within

the embassy that is responsible for assisting journalists, researchers,

educators, students and others who need information about the US.

They are in fact the people who pick up the phone when you or your stu-

dents call the embassy.

"I guess many people expect to meet an American when they call us,"

Line Anne says, "but it’s actually an advantage that Petter and I are

Norwegian. We know more about Norwegians, Norwegian schools and

Norwegian culture, and it is easier to communicate with us. Students

always ask: ‘Snakker du norsk?’ And they are quite relieved when they

find out we do!"

Contact with schools

When Line Anne and Petter talk about their day-to-day contact with

Norwegian students, it is easy to detect that they like this part of

their job. "All kinds of people call us. For example, I recently had a

woman calling me who had ordered a pair of cowboy boots from the

States. She asked me whether I thought she had bought the right size!

All in all, I would say that students – especially in senior high – are

the best ‘customers’ we have here," Line Anne enthuses. "They are gen-

erally very polite and fun to talk to." The IRC doesn’t get that many

calls from senior high teachers, though, and they would like to hear

more from them. "I’m sure it would be useful for us to get more feed-

back from teachers," Petter says. "And we do have some materials that

we believe they would find useful too."

I

I

II

II

I I I

“If you‘re having trouble finding relevant

background material for your projects, just

call the embassy. They‘ll help you.”

Foto: Sa

mfoto


From library to resource center

"I guess some teachers remember ‘the good old days’ back in the 1970s,

when the embassy was more or less open to the general public," Petter

continues. "We had a library then, with an extensive collection of

books, records and so on. We also used to have a small cinema in the

basement, and we had lots of visits from schools." Sadly, this is not

the case anymore. Funds are more modest, since providing cultural pro-

grams for western European audiences well-versed in American art, lit-

erature and music is no longer seen as essential by the US legislators.

Therefore, what used to be a library is now a reference center. Schools’

visits are less frequent, mainly for security reasons. "But if a group or

a class has done a project on something American, and is really moti-

vated and serious, a visit to us here at the IRC can be arranged," Line

Anne assures us. "But we have had a few unfortunate experiences in the

past. It’s no fun chasing around after students in the halls. Security is

very tight here!"

Services provided

So, what happens when a student calls the IRC to get help on some-

thing? "Well," Petter answers, "the most important thing to remember

is to call us between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. – otherwise they’ll only hear an

answering machine. This is because we don’t have the capacity to

answer questions all day." Line Anne has another point: "Some students

call us with detailed lists of questions, it’s almost as if they want us

to do their assignments for them! Again, we don’t have the time to

answer all of these questions. And even though we know quite a lot

about the USA, we don’t know everything. But this can often be reme-

died – we just refer them to our website. The Internet has really made

a huge difference when it comes to providing information. Our website

has become indispensable – it provides links to all kinds of informa-

tion about the US." In fact, the website is so vast and complex that

Line Anne and Petter would advise teachers to have a good look at it

themselves, in order to give their students some guidance. They would

also like to tell teachers that the website gives a daily political

update from Washington – "The Washington File".

Materials

In the days when the Internet was just a crazy idea in some computer

scientist’s mind, the embassy used to send a lot of material to schools

in Norway. "We still do that to some extent," Petter explains. "When

students want some general information in printed form, we send them

a brochure called ‘Portrait of the USA’. For teachers, we have the

‘Outline’ series, which gives more detailed information about politics,

geography, history etc. And we have an informative CD-ROM as well. All

this is free of charge, of course." These products can also be accessed

electronically (see link below). In addition to this, they have a lot of

contacts in the USA itself, and are confident that they can provide

teachers with almost any kind of information if requested.

Before we leave them, Line Anne and Petter welcome teachers and stu-

dents to call or mail them, but they also have a special plea to all

teachers out there:

"Could you please tell all your students this (we have answered this

question literally a million times): there are 50 states in the USA!"

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The United States Embassy:

Home Page: www.usa.no (especially the About the USA section)

Information publications from the Department of State:

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/

E-mail: [email protected]

Telephone (teachers): 21 30 88 02 / 21 30 87 08

Telephone (students): 21 30 89 96 (Mon-Fri 2 p.m.-4 p.m.)

The British Embassy:

Home Page: www.britain.no

Information for schools: www.britain.no/news/schools.htm

E-mail: [email protected]

Telephone: 23 13 27 25 (Assistant Public Affairs Officer Kate Langstrøm Nordahl)

The British embassy offers, among other things,

- information material for students (wall charts, CD-ROM, printed publications)

- materials for teachers (booklets, handbooks – some of which you must pay for)

- video library (factual videos about Britain)

- class visits

- visits from the embassy (not always possible)

- website with many useful links

U s e f u l

i n f o r m a t i o n :

U s e f u l


U s e f u l


U s e f u l


U s e f u l



‘Cajun culture is also a gumbo,’ popular chef

Paul Prudhomme explains at his restaurant in

New Orleans. ‘The language, music and food

are a mixture of French, English, Spanish,

German, American and Afro-American ingredi-

ents.’

Prudhomme’s family descends from the

Acadians who emigrated from France to Nova

Scotia (Acadia) in the early 17th century.

They were banished by the British in the

middle of the 18th century, and most of them

moved to southern Louisiana, where they

became fishermen, farmers or trappers. The

Cajun people are famous for their joie de

vivre, having as their motto ‘Laissez les

bons temps rouler!’ (‘Let the good times

roll’), and their music – a blend of country

and rock’n roll – is captivating and distinc-

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??????

B a j a n , C a j u n a n d C r e o l e –

Alligator, tortoise, fish, duck, oyster,

crawfish, crab and shrimps and why

not a garlic sausage. Use what you

have, spice it with love and Tabasco,

and let it simmer to a solid gumbo. In

Louisiana, the Cajuns know how to

make such juicy casseroles.

By Gunnel Bergström

Photos: David Dahmén


tive, to put it mildly. Prud homme tells us,

for example, that Cajun music developed a

unique accordion technique because the bel-

lows came from Europe by mail order, with-

out an instruction manual.

Cajun is a melange of Acadian French, Creole

French, 19th century French and English. Some

Cajun French words are of African, Native

American or Spanish origin. Approximately

25,000 people in Louisiana still speak this

language. It has been threatened with extinc-

tion, but thanks to an increased interest in

Cajun culture in general, the language has

seen a new rise in popularity.

Louisiana Creole – a complete language

Sometimes Cajun is confused with Louisiana

Creole, which lies even further from standard

French, even if both forms have influenced

each other over the years.

Louisiana Creole is more closely related to

the Creole languages of Haiti and the Antil -

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Some expressions

in Louisiana Creole

Bonjou – Hi!

Mo pele Paul (or Mo non se Paul)

– My name is Paul

Sa-ki to non? – What is your name?

Mersi – Thank you

Mo chagren – Excuse me/I am sorry

Sa ki to ole? – What can I do for you?

M’ ole … tanpri – I would like

M’ole aprann kreyol tanpri – I would

like to learn Creole

Ki le li ye? – What time is it?

Mo swaf – I am thirsty

Le fe cho – It is hot

The Fish skinner: ‘How de fish

goin?’ Not bad, O’Bayan Lord

has plenty of customers as he

once again has been crowned

‘fish skinning champion’ in the

annual competition at the

Oystins Fish Festival in the

Barbados.


les, and has a special grammar. The definite

article is, for example, placed after the noun,

so that the man becomes ‘nom la’. Nouns do

not have gender. The plural form is denoted by

the article ‘yé’ following the noun, so that

cows or the cows becomes ‘béf yé’.

There is no genitive. Instead, that which is

owned is placed in front of the owner: the

man’s horse –‘chwal nom la’ (horse man the).

A negative statement has a ‘pa’ in front of the

verb: I see no man – ‘M pa oua en nom’. A ques-

tion has the same word order as a de clara tive

sentence, but is spoken with a rising intona-

tion: Is your name Paul? – ‘Vou pele Paul?’

‘Creole languages are complete languages,

something earlier linguists did not realize,’

says Karl Erland Gadelii, researcher at the

Institute for Oriental and African languages

at the University of Gothenburg. ‘Linguists

used to claim that Creole languages were

degenerate, most likely because these lin-

guists were stuck in their offices and did not

travel into the real world.’

In his research, Gadelii has specialized in pid-

gin and Creole languages spoken in many for-

mer French, Dutch, Portuguese and English

colonies and which appeared in the 17th and

18th centuries.

‘The colonization by the western world was

certainly a tragedy but, for a linguist, the

study of pidgin and Creole languages is

rewarding because of what it reveals about

man’s language skills and the way he commu-

nicates in multilingual situations,’ he says.

Pidgin

What then is the difference between Creole

and pidgin?

‘Creole is a mother tongue, while pidgin is

characterized by a strictly limited vocabulary

and a very simplified grammar,’ Gadelii

answers. ‘Pidgin is spoken in addition to the

mother tongue in special situations, for exam-

ple when you do business with a foreigner.’

Maybe the concept ‘russenorsk’ sounds famil-

iar? That was a so-called commercial pidgin

that was spoken between Russian and

Norwegian fishermen in the 19th century, but

died out after the Russian Revolution. Here

are a couple of examples of what it sounded

like: ‘moja tri vekkel stannom’ – I stayed

there for three weeks; ‘tvoja njet bra man’

-– you are not a good man.

Pidgin and Creole languages are mainly found

on islands as well as in coastal areas that in

some ways have been colonized. The largest

languages are found in Haiti where 8 million

people speak Haiti Creole and in Nigeria

where approximately 30 million speak

Nigerian pidgin.

English is also Creole

It is rather humorous that some researchers

state that English is also a Creole language.

In a way one might argue that this is so:

English is full of French words, but has an

English grammar.

‘Creole French has a "transparent" structure,’

Gadelii says. He gives an example of some-

thing he calls a one-to-one relationship:

grammatical markers for tense, mode and

aspect in a verb – and even definiteness in a

noun – are expressed with separate words

rather than with inflectional suffixes. I was

running is translated ‘An té ké ka kouri’,

where the French would say ‘je courrais’. The

past tense always has one expression – ‘té’,

whereas the verb itself remains in a kind of

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Some expressions in Cajun

Lâche pas la patate – Don’t drop the

potato/don’t give up

Fais do do – a party with a traditional

Cajun dance (‘do do’ is French children’s

language for sleep)

Lagniappe – something extra special

Mardi Gras – Fat Tuesday

Bayou – mouth of the river or a river delta

Banquette – pavement

Andouille and chicken gumbo(for 6-8 persons)

c. 500 g okra (parted, seeds removed)

1 red paprika

1 yellow paprika

1 green paprika

c. 200 g stalk selleri

2 onions

6 andouille sausages

300 g chicken filet

4 cloves garlic

bacon (1 pack)

2 Spanish pepper

6-8 crawfish

ground black pepper

c. 1 dl sassafras leaves

salt

Brown roux (2 dl olive oil, 2,5 dl flour.

Heat oil until it smokes. Carefully stir in

flour to a dark brown batter. Be aware of

the risk of skin damage from the hot oil.)

5 dl chicken bouillon or water

3 dl tomato juice

Cut the ingredients in equal parts and

sauté

Add water or bouillon

Boil for 5 minutes

Carefully add the hot roux

Simmer for 15-20 minutes

Garnish with crawfish, half a sausage and

some grilled chicken

Serve with rice

Facts

Learn more about Creole and Cajun in

Louisiana at www.cajunculture.com


basic form, like ‘kouri’ in this example.

Gadelii thinks a Creole language is organized

in a logical and clear way. The subject, predi-

cator and object are always placed in the

same order. This is also what children do

when they learn to speak, no matter what lan-

guage they are in the process of learning.

Those who teach Swedish as a second lan-

guage might have noticed that an immigrant

speaks a kind of ‘temporary’ Swedish with the

same logical construction as a Creole lan-

guage. Before one knows all the combinations

and inflections, one tends to arrange the

words according to this logical order, for

example the colour of the house instead of the

house’s colour.

‘Language teachers may learn more from the

Creole languages,’ Gadelii says. ‘Swedes are

very quick to pass judgement on someone who

speaks broken Swedish or who speaks with a

foreign accent. However, that does not mean

that he or she speaks bad Swedish. When it

comes to Creole French, Creole English or other

kinds of Creole, the variety is enormous –

speakers do not worry about differences in

accents.’

Broken English in Barbados

Reggae is playing from cars’ stereo systems

and the clock at the fish market in Oystins

plays calypso every hour. The atmosphere is

cool and so is the talk. In Barbados – whose

head of state is still the British queen – they

speak English, but also Bajan. It is an English

dialect or, as they themselves say, a kind of

broken English.

Just as the word Cajun comes from Acadian,

so is ‘Bajan’ taken from the last part of the

word Barbadian. In Bajan speak, they glide

across the words. Sometimes the sentences

are cut short as in ‘How de fish goin?’ which

means How are things with your fish

business? Constructions like ‘dem people’

instead of the people and ‘Was dat you say-

ing?’ instead of What were you saying? are

quite common. Words are cut short and the

word order is sometimes altered, she will do

that might just as well be ‘will she do that?’

even though it is a declarative sentence

rather than a question. Furthermore, ‘mines’

instead of mine and ‘her’ instead of she sug-

gest a relatively liberal grammar.

Bajan is spoken among friends, although not

so much at home when the children are small.

‘First they have to learn correct English;

Bajan must wait till they have grown older,’

a mother explains.

A collection of proverbs testifies to a rather

cool attitude to life. You might hear expres-

sions like: ‘Yuh nevah miss de watah till de

well run dry’, or ‘You dead longer dan yuh live’.

When I listened to some men discussing a

cricket match all I could understand was

‘Australia’ and ‘we don use whole area’, which

probably meant that they were dissatisfied

because the home team did not make use of

the entire field. I did not understand the rest

of what they said at all – it sounded like one

long ‘rrdogedo’. My lasting impression is that

Bajan is pretty laid back, and a comfortably

lazy manner of speaking. Perhaps this memory

is strengthened by the beating reggae sound

and the fact that the sun almost always

shines in the Barbados.

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Teachers who are familiar with

PASSAGE, Cappelen’s textbook for

the first year of upper secondary

school, are perhaps aware of the

emphasis put on teaching poetry

in an accessible manner in the

book. Now the authors of

PASSAGE have gone a step

further, as they are about to

complete a new "poetry lesson

plan" that will be sent to all

teachers of English in Norwegian

upper secondary school.

"We would like to give teachers more reasons

to teach poetry," Theresa Bowles Sørhus

explains. "Many people have told us that they

have liked our approach in the textbook, so we

wanted to give students and teachers alike the

opportunity to work with poetry once again."

Exposure rather than exhaustion

Theresa is anxious to stress that the empha-

sis at this level should be on exposure to the

mystery and wonder of poetry rather than an

exhaustive study of every aspect of the genre.

Or, as she says, "In the book itself, there is a

progression from the obvious – structure,

rhythm, rhyme – to the less obvious – such as

imagery, symbolism and interpretation. We

present the poems within different frame-

works rather than as isolated entities, and we

believe this makes it easier for students to

appreciate poetry."

This time, the framework is called Modern

Poetry: An Introduction to Two Poets – Robert

Bly and William Stafford. Both men are acknow -

ledged contemporary poets, but the main rea-

son why they were chosen is that they write in

free verse, and in language that students

should have few difficulties understanding.

What is "the poetry lesson plan"?

Theresa explains: "There is a series of poems,

followed by activities which encourage stu-

dents to reflect over and thus better under-

stand the poems. There’s also a Teacher’s

Resource that provides some of the reasoning

behind our approach to teaching poetry, as

well as some information about the poets and

some suggestions for how to use the poems in

the classroom. In addition, there are colorful

illustrations on overhead transparencies for

most of the poems. These illustrations can be

used either for pre-reading activities or for

discussions after the students have read the

poems and we think they add a new

dimension to working with poetry."

"Of course," Theresa continues, "this lesson

plan is but one of many possible approaches

to working with poetry in the classroom. Each

teacher must decide what will work best in

his or her classes, but we have chosen poems

and illustrations that we think will appeal to

students’ imagination and creativity. For

more in-depth work, there are suggestions for

additional tasks at the end of the poetry

sequence. Many of these tasks can be done

with the help of the PASSAGE website at

www.cappelen.no."

Theresa ends our conversation by saying that

it is the authors’ hope that in whatever man-

ner teachers wish to work with this poetry

sequence, students will find their encounter

with modern poetry a pleasurable experience

and that a good foundation for later work with

poetry will have been laid.

Next term, there will be another lesson plan

from the authors of PASSAGE.


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She was so fast! It’s rare to meet a person who could so quickly understand and

deal with issues. It was like having an intellectual ninja on our side. She was

absolutely fearless at tackling problems. And she called a spade a spade – usu-

ally in a flood of words that would come pouring out so fast that English and

Norwegian would trip and tumble over one another in her impatience to express

herself. Now, I come from the Midwest of the United States and I recognized

that kind of straightforwardness, so aptly summed up by the phrase, "Oh yeah?

Show me!" She was both clear-eyed and caring – a rare combination and a

remarkable match.

Then I watched when fate turned against her and she turned those lean and

chiseled features of hers against the wind and forged on, honing her qualities

down to the essentials. She threw herself into her work, her world and her fami-

ly, drawing on her passion and her love of life to the very end. She was angry. It

was not just, she said. And she was right once again. She was smack-dab in the

middle of her life. Her children were still growing. She had so much yet to do. It

is not just. It is not explicable or acceptable.

But now, we who are left behind must turn to one another for comfort, as she

would have wanted. We are Marcie now – all of us whose lives she touched. We

all carry some part of her with us. As long as we live, she will live on in our

thoughts and our dreams and our memories. For my part, I will always have her

with me in my mind – advising me, nagging me, informing me, disagreeing with

me, encouraging me, sharing with me.

It’s not as good as really having her here.

But it is a lot better than never having had her here at all.

With gratitude,

Robert Mikkelsen

On January 12, 2001 the world became a lit-

tle poorer, a little emptier, a little sadder.

On that day my co-author, Marcie Madden

Austad, passed away after a long illness,

only 47 years old. I still cannot believe it. I

know in my mind that Marcie is gone, but

my heart tells me it cannot be so. Not

Marcie. Especially not Marcie. She was one

of the most vibrantly – passionately – alive

persons I have ever met. It just is not con-

ceivable that a spirit that has burned so

brightly could be extinguished.

When I first met her and she looked me

straight in the eye while she shook my hand

firmly, almost the first thing that crossed

my mind was – "Hey! This is one focused

lady. Watch your step!" And I was right. As

we worked together, I gradually got to know

her, to learn her qualities – committed,

fiercely loyal, inventive, workaholic, out-

spoken, affectionate, pragmatic, impatient,

talented, and above all energetic. She was

truly interested in the world around her, be

it literature, or politics, or teaching, or

movies, or pupils, or what to have for dinner

on many a Saturday evening when all us

Cappelen authors were held up in some

hotel, crossing swords and writing books.


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We take part in the fami-

ly coronation celebration

in front of the "telly",

holidays at the seaside

in dingy B&Bs and

Sunday outings in the

motorcar. With Ruby we

experience the effect of

the educational and

social reforms that took

place in the UK after the

Second World War,

reforms which meant

that kids from back

streets could hope for an

education and a way up –

as long as they passed

the dreaded eleven-plus.

In other words, a plot that has been used over and over in recent years.

However, Atkinson’s storytelling technique makes this fairly straight-

forward storyline into a book with a difference. The first paragraph is

enough to convince you:

"I exist! I am conceived at the chimes of midnight on the clock on the

mantelpiece in the room across the hall. The clock once belonged to my

great-grandmother (a woman called Alice) and its tired chime counts

me into the world. I’m begun on the first stroke and finished on the

last when my father rolls off my mother and is plunged into a dream-

less sleep, thanks to the five pints of John Smith’s Best Bitter he has

drunk at the Punch Bowl with his friends, Walter and Bernard Belling.

At the moment at which I am moved from nothingness into being my

mother was pretending to be asleep – as she often does at such

moments. My father, however, is made of sterner stuff and he didn’t let

that put him off."

After this, events somehow don’t develop quite chronologically. There

is no index of chapters staking out a course, either; it is an interwoven

story that twists and turns. Just like life, you just have to carry on to

find out the score. And as you read you realise that there is also a

mystery – a mystery we only gradually become aware of through

Ruby’s growing up and her gaining in understanding. A mystery both of

the "who done it?" and of the

"what’s the crime?" kind.

Something awful has happened!

Something that has affected the

relationship between all the mem-

bers of the family: a ghost from

the past. And so ingenious is Kate

Atkinson’s storytelling, that when

it suddenly and horrifyingly dawns

on Ruby what dreadful crime has

taken place, we realise that we

have in fact been told and we

should have known, and it shouldn’t have come as a surprise and a

shock. Yet we are as shocked as Ruby. And then, we re-read the book to

assure ourselves that we have known all the time, but the same thing

happens again.

In addition to telling her own story, Ruby also tells the story of her

family – her roots. This she does as "footnotes" interspersed within

the story of her own life. There are also cross-references to the foot-

notes helping to tie it all into one interconnected story.

The footnotes first tell the story of Alice, Ruby’s great-grandmother

– a misplaced country beauty who, bored and frustrated in a marriage

with an unsuccessful small farmer who had turned drunkard, elopes

with an exotic, handsome travelling photographer sometime towards

the end of the 19th century. Then we hear the story of her abandoned

children, and of course of Bunty, Ruby’s mother, and of Bunty’s sib-

lings and cousins.

To sum it up, Kate Atkinson has written a book that from a very per-

sonal point of view tells us about England in two World Wars, growing

up in the 50s, pain and suffering throughout, downtrodden women and

pitiably weak men – and a murder mystery. Fairly standard soap real-

ism. But somehow, with a Yorkshire skill for understatement and irony

and for using laughter as a bolster against pure despair, Kate

Atkinson has given us a book that is neither boring nor depressing.

Enjoy it!

I would like to encourage Bjørn Thrana at Haugaland videregående to

write about a favourite novel in the next issue of this magazine.

Read It!Read It! Reviewed by Erling Gilje

Godalen videregående skole

My book is Behind the Scenes

at the Museum by Kate

Atkinson. The main character

of the novel is Ruby Lennox.

Her parents are called Bunty

and George. Together with

Ruby’s sisters, they live above

the family-run pet shop in one

of the back streets in York. We

follow them through weekdays

and Sundays, joys and griefs,

life and death.


Ja, takk!

Jeg vil gjerne stå som mottaker av den nye fagavisen for engelsklærere.

Skolens navn: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Skolens adresse: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Faglærerens navn: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

E-post adresse: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

CAPPELEN UNDERVISNING, Videregående skole, Postboks 350 Sentrum, 0101 Oslo. Faksnummer: 22 36 50 46

?

There are 5 houses.

All houses have a different colour.

All house owners are of a different nationality.

All house owners have an animal.

All house owners drink a different drink.

All house owners smoke a different cigarette brand.

The Englishman lives in the red house.

The Swede has a dog.

The Dane drinks tea.

The green house is to the left of the white house.

In the green house they drink coffee.

The man smoking Pall Mall has birds.

In the yellow house they smoke Dunhill.

In the house in the middle they drink milk.

The Norwegian lives in the first house.

The man smoking Blend lives next to the house with a cat.

In the house next to the house with a horse they smoke Dunhill.

The man smoking Blue Master drinks beer.

The German smokes Prince.

The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.

They drink water next to the house where Blend is smoked.

? Who owns the zebra?

Who Owns the Zebra?

Når du har klart å løse gåten, send løsningen til oss (adressen finner du foran i tidsskriftet).

Tre heldige vinnere vil motta en boksjekk til en verdi av 300 kroner.

Vinnerne av forrige nummers konkurranse er:

Alie Roland, Øvrebø vgs. • Lisbeth Wik Larssen, Charlottenlund vgs. • Fiona Ellingsen, Høgskolen i Narvik


magazine_2001-1

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