The Hunger Games’ grammatik: Integreret grammatikundervisning i praksis

Abstract

This article examines the potential for integrated grammar teaching (IGT) based on stylistic analysis of the novel, The Hunger Games, in the Danish upper secondary educational system (HF). Since the 1990s, the importance of combining communication and grammar teaching has been emphasized; however, the Danish upper secondary schools have not embraced the scientific findings. This article exemplifies how to close the gap between research and reality with IGT through the following two perspectives: with an eye to developing teaching materials and through a stylistic analysis of chapter 11 of The Hunger Games, we firstly analyze how modality characterizes the narrator of The Hunger Games, Katniss. The stylistic analysis reveals that the homodiegetic narrator’s assessments of the hypothetical risks relating to the people and the world around her are expressed through epistemic modality in the form of modal verbs. Secondly, based on the stylistic analysis, we develop, test and discuss teaching materials for IGT for the English b-level[1] at HF. Our results demonstrate that IGT is challenging, motivating and educational: the pupils acquire the basic characteristics of modality to some degree and manage to use their linguistic findings to characterize the narrator. The evaluation shows that the learners could benefit from less concentrated IGT and more variation; this could possibly be achieved by mixing IGT with other aspects of the curriculum. The study also shows that, while it is possible to develop teaching material for IGT based on stylistic analysis, an in-depth stylistic analysis (like the one reported here) is not necessary for teaching at this level, an important factor which could reduce the teacher’s preparation time.

[1] English b unofficially corresponds to B2 (Undervisningsministeriet 2018a) at the CEFR, The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, put together by the Council of Europe (Exam English 2014).