INNOVATIVE TEACHING METHODS IN A CULTURE INTEGRATED ENGLISH LANGUAGE COURSE

The relevance of the study is dictated by the demand of the state for training competitive specialists who are ready to maintain an intercultural dialogue in their professional field. The main goal of modern language education is the development of innovative integrated courses that enable students to enrich their subject knowledge and to master the ability to use this knowledge at the international level. This article considers Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) to be promising ways of implementing the integrative approach into the education system. Many methodologists and linguists have proven the effectiveness of interconnected teaching foreign languages and cultures, resulting in the selection of a culture-based course designed in English as an object of the research. With a view to developing students’ professional foreign language competence and enriching subject knowledge, the educational process includes using digital tools provided by museums around the world (the State Hermitage Museum, the Louvre Museum, the British Museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Uffizi Gallery, The Vatican Museums), as well as the tasks based on these authentic resources. The study reveals that digital archives, online art collections, ‘Virtual Visit’, audio and video resources are valuable sources of authentic materials that can be used in the process of professionally oriented English teaching.

Långbro Hospital, Sweden—From Psychiatric Institution to Digital Museum: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Sites of oppression might be remembered in ways that contribute to dialogues about human rights and justice, exemplified by Sites of Conscience. Oppression was commonplace in former psychiatric institutions, yet such institutions are often subject to strategic forgetting and transformed into business parks, hotels, or residential areas. This article concerns Långbro Hospital, a digital museum presenting the former psychiatric institution Långbro, Sweden, now transformed into a residential area. I discuss how the former institution becomes a digital nonplace in which patients tend to be objectified or excluded, and the park and the buildings in which oppression occurred are reduced to representing beauty and functionality. I relate the analysis to digital Sites of Conscience such as British Museum of Colonialism and Pennhurst Memorial and Preservation Alliance and, thereby, show that thoughtful digitization might recognize prior as well as current injustice and oppression and contribute to change.

History of Scholarship

The manuscript of the Syriac Julian Romance was part of the Nitrian manuscripts which came into the possession of the British Museum in the 1830s. The Julian Romance received broader attention in 1874 in an important publication by the German orientalist Theodor Nöldeke. Six years later, J. G. E. Hoffmann published the complete Syriac work under the title Syrische Erzählungen; it is the only (non-critical) edition available of the Romance. In 1928 Hermann Gollancz published an English rendering. In 2016 a much better and reliable English translation of the Romance was published by Michael Sokoloff; besides a translation, it also includes the Syriac text of Hoffmann’s edition from 1880. This chapter offers a discussion of the scholarship of the Romance and deals with issues such as the place and date of origin of the text, the original language, the possible authorship, function, and genre of the text, as well as its place within Syriac literature. The Romance as we have it is generally accepted as having been composed in Edessa. The northern Mesopotamian city has a special place and a prominent role in the Julian Romance, in particular in the Jovian Narrative. One of the purposes of the text seems to have been to emphasize Edessa as the city of Christ par excellence, for which reason it deserves a special place in the world of Christendom, as well as to present Edessa as the model of Christian government for the whole empire.

Cemeteries of the Great War by Sir Edwin Lutyens

En 1917 se le encargó al arquitecto británico sir Edwin Lutyens que hiciera diseños para los cementerios de guerra en el continente. El resultado fue casi 1000 cementerios y monumentos diseñados por Lutyens y otros arquitectos en Bélgica, norte de Francia y varios lugares de Asia. Bajo el liderazgo del director del Museo Británico, los arquitectos optaron por un estilo común, con la libertad de hacer variaciones individuales para cada cementerio relacionado con su contexto. Como resultado de estas dos ideas opuestas, hay dos elementos principales en cada cementerio, la ‘Piedra de Guerra’ diseñada por Lutyens y la Cruz del Sacrificio de Blomfield. Para los soldados desaparecidos, se erigieron enormes monumentos con sus nom- bres en las paredes como único recuerdo. Los cementerios más pequeños fueron diseñados por jóvenes arquitectos que estuvieron en el ejército durante la guerra. Hay lápidas en lugar de cruces para cada tumba según las diferentes condiciones religiosas de los soldados. Para Lutyens, el concepto de cementerio se basaba en la idea de una catedral verde, una iglesia al aire libre, rodeada de árboles como columnas. Esta idea se inspiró en la conocida arquitecta paisajista Getrude Jekyll. Gracias al mantenimiento por parte de la Commonwealth War Graves Commission, los cementerios todavía están en perfecto estado y juegan un papel importante en el recuerdo de la Primera Guerra Mundial. Already in 1917, the British architect sir Edwin Lutyens was asked to make designs for warcemeteries on the continent. In the end this resulted in almost 1000 cemeteries and monuments designed by Lutyens and other architects in Belgium, Northern France and other locations in Asia. Under leadership of the director of the British Museum, the architects have chosen for a common style, with the freedom to make individual variations for each cemetery related to the site. As a result of two opposing ideas there are two main elements on each cemetery, the War Stone designed by Lutyens and the Cross of Sacrifice by Blomfield. For the soldiers which were not found huge monuments were erected with their names on walls as their only surviving memory. The smaller cemeteries were designed by young architects who were in the army during the war. There are headstones instead of crosses for each grave due to the different religious background of the soldiers. For Lutyens the concept of a cemetery was based on the idea of green cathedral, a church in the open air, surrounded by trees as columns. For this idea he took advice from the well-known landscape architect Getrude Jekyll. Because of the maintenance by de Commonwealth War Graves Commission Still the cemeteries are still in perfect state and play an important role in the remembrance of the First World War.

Malacostraca Podophthalmata Britanniæ 1815–1875 by William Elford Leach and the history of its fragmented publication (Crustacea: Decapoda)

The present study documents the fragmented publication history of Malacostraca Podophthalmata Britanniæ by William Elford Leach, illustrated with coloured figures of all the species by James Sowerby. This work was originally proposed to consist of 12 or 14 numbers. One number was to be published every two months between the years 1815 and 1818. Although this was increased to 19 numbers its publication by James Sowerby halted at number 17 in 1820. In that year Leach had a complete nervous breakdown and, although he eventually recovered, he was retired from his post at the British Museum in 1822. Although Leach was optimistic and set out plans to complete Malacostraca, he died from cholera in 1836 near Genoa, Italy, with the work unfinished. During the early 1870s fortuitous events occurred that would lead to the publication of numbers 18 and 19 and the completion of the work. At that time William Sowerby began negotiating with Bernard Quaritch, a London publisher, for disposal of old stock from the Sowerby publishing house including Malacostraca. George Brettingham Sowerby the younger, an established naturalist and highly skilled illustrator, proposed that the Malacostraca should be updated and he prepared Nos. 18 and 19 for publication. These last two volumes of Malacostraca were finally made available by Quaritch in November 1875. The authorship of Nos. 1–17 has never been in doubt and this is the work of Leach with illustrations by James Sowerby. Among the taxa illustrated in Nos. 18 & 19 however, are species which were not known to occur in British waters when Leach was working and as such the choice of Malacostraca illustrated in 1875 differed significantly from the original proposals. Consequently the 1875 supplement should therefore correctly be credited entirely to G.B. Sowerby II and cited as Sowerby, G.B. II in Leach, W.E. (1875). Finally, because copies of the Malacostraca are not generally available, all the magnificent plates illustrated by James Sowerby and George Sowerby II are reproduced here in full colour.

The enamelled baldric of Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray (c 1280–1332)

The baldric of Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray (died 1332), a companion in arms of King Robert I, was made in the first half of the 14th century and taken to England before 1604, since which time it has been attached to the Savernake horn, now in the British Museum. It is elaborately decorated with champlevé and translucent enamel, and bears the arms of argent three cushions gules within a royal tressure, which were adopted by Thomas Randolph after he was created Earl of Moray in 1312. The baldric shows Scottish heraldry and ownership, and so appears to be an example of Scottish enamelling. This article examines both the enamel decoration and the life of Thomas Randolph and suggests that there is a greater probability that it was made in France, possibly Paris or Avignon, rather than Scotland.