Land Rover (LR) is a multi-media resource material for introductory survey courses about the British Isles and the USA. It offers a wide spectrum of topics covering the geography, history, politics, society and culture of the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the USA. The authors’ main objective was to give easy access to information about these countries, providing students with a cultural background in the most important English-speaking countries. The material was prepared primarily for BA students majoring in English and American Studies, but it can be used with profit in any higher educational course where an introduction to the contemporary United Kingdom, Ireland or the United States of America is necessary or useful. The successful use of the material presupposes at least an upper-intermediate level competence in English.
LR is not a traditional textbook that students are expected to read and learn from cover to cover. It discusses a wide range of topics related to the target countries, and the entire material would simply be too much reading for a single course. The material is not arranged in any prescribed order, and it is not divided into a fixed number of units or classes. The reason is simple: the authors wanted to create a flexible teaching material that can be used for a variety of purposes. We give the chance to teachers to make their own selections from the wealth of the CD-ROM. They may lay the emphasis on certain chapters more and might choose to completely ignore other chapters or subchapters.
The material is arranged by country: in the main menu, users may choose between the United States of America, the United Kingdom, or the Republic of Ireland. Besides the United Kingdom link, there are separate links to each of the constituent countries of the UK: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The information about each country is arranged under five major chapters: geography, history, government, society, and culture. Each chapter offers brief survey texts as well as more detailed discussions of individual issues and internet links to other interesting information. Teachers and students alike are encouraged to discover the CD-ROM, browse the menu items, click on the internet links, follow up on their individual interests and preferences.
§ The Geography chapter of each country includes several detailed maps and descriptions about such topics as climate, hills and rivers, the main regions, national resources, or the largest cities. But users can also find out what the World Heritage Sites are in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, watch video-clips on the landmarks of Wales and Scotland, or learn which region of the US was the birthplace of blues, jazz, and rock and roll.
§ The History chapter is not meant to replace a good course book on the history of the target countries. Our goal was to give a general outline and survey the major periods and the protagonists in the history of the people of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and the USA. The outlines are illustrated with colour pictures and some maps and have a number of hyperlinks (both off- and on-line references) for further reading. The overall purpose was to provide students with the “big picture”. They will have plenty of opportunities and time later in their course to study history in more detail.
§ The Government and Politics chapter introduces students to the system of government, the national legislations, the elections, and the major parties of each country. Among other aspects, we discuss some recent and exciting developments in the on-going constitutional reform in the United Kingdom, which has given autonomous self-government to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, significantly changed the membership of the House of Lords, and created a Supreme Court in Britain. We also explain how it was possible that George W. Bush won the presidential election in 2000 although he received less votes than his opponent.
§ The Society chapter introduces students to inhabitants of the target countries. They can find out how many different nationalities and racial groups live in the British Isles and in the USA, what languages are spoken, what the special problems of non-white racial minorities are. But there will be plenty of information about the lifestyle and habits of British, Irish and American people too.
§ The Culture chapter is perhaps the most wide-ranging of all. It includes such titles as Education, Religion, Media, National identity and values, National symbols, Food and Drink, Hall of Fame, etc. Culture Shock is a special additional section based on the personal impressions and experiences of Hungarian students, tourists and au-pairs in Britain introducing you to some surprising as well as stereotypically “British” aspects of every-day life situations as seen through the eyes of Hungarians.
§ The Slide-show is most likely to be the favourite with most students. The virtual tour that takes you to the “must see” landmarks of the British Isles and the USA with the help of hundreds of pictures was compiled not only to whet your appetite but hopefully to help you plan a future visit to the natural and cultural treasures of the English-speaking countries. Each picture is supplied with a more extensive description that you can read by clicking on the short description icon (with the exception of the UK slideshow, assembled purely to entertain). If you click on the map icon next to it, a map pops up showing the location of the landmark on the picture.
§ The Tests included on the CD-ROM are meant to help students check their progress in learning some of the information deemed most important (by the authors). Teachers will most likely compile tests that are different in style and content.
Since the range of topics about a country is potentially unlimited, the authors had to make selective decisions and leave certain topics out. For instance; literature, literary culture, drama and theatre were deliberately omitted, since they are usually covered in great detail in other university BA courses of English majors. The authors did not feel that their expertise would suffice to offer surveys on the history or the contemporary scene of creative arts (painting, sculpture, architecture, classical music, etc.). In general, we felt that an introduction to the society and lifestyle of a country should focus less on elite culture and more on popular culture, including mass media, movies, sports, religion, and other aspects that are often neglected in university English courses.
The authors welcome any comments, corrections and proposals, from both teachers and students. Please share your thoughts and experiences with us at the following addresses:
Júlia Fodor: juliafodor@freemail.hu
Károly Pintér: pinterk@gmail.com
We have also created a special homepage specifically for the purpose of communicating with the users of Land Rover, to provide additional materials, ideas on teaching methodology, more interesting and amusing snapshots, and many other things. Please check out the following site from time to time:
Finally, it is our pleasurable duty to acknowledge the many obligations we have incurred during our work on this project. We are especially grateful to the many people who have contributed to Land Rover by giving us permission to use their photos, videos, quote their articles or Internet sites in part or whole, as well as to those who have shared with us their personal stories and insights. Of course, we both feel most thankful and indebted to our spouses (Benczik Vera and Dr. Fodor Nándor) who have been our primary source of help and inspiration throughout the months of writing and compiling Land Rover. We would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to our professors and university colleagues who have impacted and enriched us in so many different ways throughout our years of cooperation. Many thanks are due to our students in the past years who, through questions, critiques and by answering our end-term course evaluation sheets, shaped and fine-tuned our Introduction to Britain and the USA courses. We are thankful to Eszter Kurutz for her two essays on British Film and American Film. Furthermore, Pintér Károly would like to gratefully acknowledge the special assistance of the Fulbright Commission, which provided him with a research fellowship to Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, in the fall of 2003, where he did much of the research for the USA part of the teaching material.
Fodor Júlia
Dr. Pintér Károly