4.1 Introduction
4.2 Guidelines literature
4.3 Tasks for literature
4.4 Three poems
4.5 The Little Prince
4.6 Malamud's Black
4.7 Guidelines for films
4.8 Tasks for films
4.9 Guidelines songs
4.10 Stranger than you
4.11 Bibliography

 4.5 Activities to explore Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince

Gerlind Vief-Schmidt

INTERCULTURAL LEARNING IN PLURICULTURAL CONTEXTS

Preliminary thoughts

The Little Prince, Le Petit Prince, Der Kleine Prinz is a conte that may be dealt with at upper secondary level. It turns out to be particularly suited for teaching in intercultural teaching contexts because common cultural concepts can be discovered, discussed and compared.

Teaching objectives

• Developing openness towards different ways of thinking, living and looking at the world around us;
• Encouraging the capacity to tolerate different interpretations;
• Promoting reflection on different ways of perceiving the world;
• Reaching consensus on issues of common interest;
• Understanding one's own cultural heritage;
• Going beyond established patterns of interpreting and perceiving;
• Using the linguistic and cultural potential in the classroom.

Pre-reading activities

In order to raise awareness of learners from different backgrounds, attention may be drawn to different representations of the Little Prince in the different media: on book covers, in songs (Gilbert Bécaud and others), on pre-euro French currency (the 50 Franc banknote, with the Little Prince, the author, the globe, and the elephant in the snake on it).

Questions to be discussed

• What meanings are attributed to princes (in real life, in music, in folk tales, in sayings, etc.) in your culture?
• Describe the way the prince is dressed, his look, gestures, the colour of his hair, etc., as he is represented on the various covers.
• Make a drawing or cartoon on the basis of your associations with the word "prince" and present it to the class.
• Compare your associations with other prince-like figures. Find out if they differ depending on their cultural background (the pop star Prince, Die Prinzen, etc.).

While-reading activities

Phase 1:  Awareness raising. Different languages = different
                  cultures = different perceptions

Compare at least two versions of the Little Prince in two different languages. Keep a personal reading diary of your thoughts, and note down any differences in language use, representation of characters, animals in the printed copies and in the version you find on the internet.

Phase 2:  Travelling the world

1. Write down what you associate with "travel", "journey", and "voyage" on individual cards. These are to be collected and compared. (Travel as tourism-related, évasion, escape, Aufbruch, taking off, versus encounter, return to a home country, and friendship, relevant associations for foreign-born children.)
   
2. The cards can then be redistributed (or simply exchanged with a partner) to find out more about what these terms mean to different people in the class.

Phase 3:  Exploring the universe

Discuss your answers to the questions below.

1. The Little Prince takes off: Where does he travel?
2. Why does he travel?
3. Is he going to be confronted with difficulties /tests, etc.? Explain.
4. Who does he encounter? Who are his interlocutors?
5. Is there a kind of initiation?
6. What's the basic message to the reader? Who transmits the message?
7. Is there a kind of moral lesson being taught? What is it?
8. How can you apply it to your "lebensweltliches Fremdverstehen"?
9. How can you apply it to your gender role?

Phase 4:  Encounters with the rose in Saint Exupéry and 
                  beyond

1. Brainstorming about the rose to collect cross-cultural associations.
   (Love and suffering, seduction and beauty, warmth, faithfulness, pride, vanity, exquisiteness, thorns, dolcezza, la vita)
   
2. Collect popular names from different cultures containing an element related to the rose.
   Turkish: Gülden (of the rose), composite names like Özgül,   Gülcan, Aishe, Aishegül,
    English: Rose
    French: Marie-Rose
    German: Rosemarie, Annerose, Rosamunde, etc.
    Other languages:
   
3. Relate cross-cultural associations to scenes in the Little Prince.
   Role play (For example, imagine how the Little Prince would tame the fox in your culture and act it out.)
   
4. Gender discourse in The Little Prince. Critical reflections through research into adjectives,
   verbs, speech patterns, and a comparison of translations. This is a useful / linguistic, social, cognitive and emotional exercise when it comes to awakening even conservative, angst-ridden girls and boys to reflection on gender issues.
   
5. Search on the internet. Try to find more literary pieces on the rose. See if you can find similar patterns in: Edith Stein, Rainer Maria Rilke, Umberto Eco, Pierre de Ronsard (Amours de Cassandre), Guillaume de Lorris (Le Roman de la Rose).
   
6. Find examples of the symbol of the rose in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the 20th century, both in religious and cultural representations.
   
7. Write your own poem/short story, etc. on the rose.

Phase 5:  Critical awareness exercises/gender discourse and 
                  cultural differences against the background of the 
                  love story contained in The Little Prince.

Extracts from chapters 8 and 9, suited for discussion of communication patterns, perception, gender roles and stereotypes.

Phase 6:   A Change in Perspective

Activities:   writing, rewriting, role-plays, ping pong

Materials:   the above extracts and further original texts

TASKS

Task 1        Write a portrait of an idol of the opposite sex.
Task 2        Reverse roles: Have a boy write/play the female/male 
                  part.
                  Or: Have a girl write /play the female /male part.
                  In order to make your point, write dialogues in pair 
                  work. 
Task 3        Compare your texts.
Task 4        After reading the texts in Phase 6, write your own 
                  personal ending of the story.

Phase 7:   Making (cross-)cultural talk part of your teaching

Activities:   Research, discussion, presentation
                  Rewriting, de-stereotyping, presentation

Task 1        Find and exchange information about the various 
                  ways of representing animals in drawings, paintings, 
                  fables, fairy tales, songs, proverbs and sayings in 
                  different cultures.

Task 2        Concentrate on animals and their respective roles

1. as described in Task 1.
2. as represented in The Little Prince: the fox, the mutton, the elephant, the snake.
3. Find recurrent similar interpretations in different cultures.
4. Find differences in interpretations.
5. Find out whether and where animal life is represented at all / is not represented or banned from visual art and why.
6. Compare tales from different cultural backgrounds.

Task 3 and related tasks 

Brainstorming with the help of role cards:
What do you associate with "cultural" animals such as
the wolf, the cat?
Find differences and similarities in perceptions of these animals;
Work on their usefulness in an environmental context; on their veneration in various cultures in previous times and nowadays.
Reflect on why Saint Exupéry makes animals talk. Why are a child and an animal the main interlocutors of the story? Find instances from the cultural heritage of your country. Research into instances of the author's dealing with non-respect of values during Saint Exupéry's lifetime (Second World War, Fascism).
Start afresh writing de-stereotyping tales, poems, etc. about animals, or extra terrestrial beings with or without a moral intention or message.

Post-reading activities

1. Take off for a journey back or forward in time and change the structure and/or message of the tale.
   
2. Imagine you are a gender-wise enlightened prince or princess or just a normal human being.
   
3. Think of the 21st century. Make the love story come true.
   
4. You may also imagine you return to your beloved after having attained human experience and wisdom and understood the tale's message.
   
5. You may sketch an encounter with a person from a different ethnic background. Accept advice from fellow pupils/students.
   
6. Write and act out your own story.
   
7. Compare the ways you have gone about changes /what your messages are/ what you have changed and why your story might look more "natural".
   
8. Read modern ethnic literature: What is to be gained from reading it? (See the recommended titles in section 4.11.)
   
9. Read and reflect on how you can reinterpret classics from an intercultural perspective.

Bibliography :

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry : The Little Prince, Translation : Richard Howard, Harcourt, Inc.,
San Diego, New York, London: 2000

Antoine de Saint /Exupéry : Le Petit Prince, Ferdinand Schöningh : Paderborn 1991

Stefanie Bermanseder/Gerlind Vief-Schmidt : Sprachen und Konnotationen, in : Sprachen in der Klasse, Praxis Deutsch, Friedrich/Klett : Velber, 1999

Ansgar Nünnich: Fremdverstehen durch literarische Texte: von der Theorie zur Praxis, in:
Der fremdsprachliche Unterricht Englisch, September: 2001

Raymond Rogé: Récits fantastiques, Textes pour aujourd'hui, Librairie Larousse: Paris 1977

next chapter: 4.6 Malamud's Black