Saturday, 9 November 2013

Approaches used by some Malaysian teachers.

          Teaching literature is not the same as the teaching of English language. While teaching English language helps us connect our surroundings into the lesson, others are teaching about other cultures such as the English culture during the 1920's era in The Great Gatsby. In teaching literature, there are several approaches that can be used by teachers in order to teach literature to students. Several studies have been made in Malaysia to identify the types of approaches that have been used by Malaysian English teachers to teach literature in their lesson. From these studies, some were widely used but some were the less favorable. 

          According to Carter (1998), Rosli (1995) and Lazar (1993), they have discovered several approaches used by some teachers in Malaysia. There are; (1) information-based approach, 2) personal-response approach, 3) language-based approach, 4) paraphrastic approach, 5) moral-philosophical approach, and 6) stylistic approach as pointed out by Diana Hwang and Mohamed Amin Embi (2007). In their study, they have clarified the approaches method in order to make the readers understand the details of the approaches.

           Information-based approach is a way of teaching the background of the literature and often been done by teachers who provide all the information about the literature to the students. Lazar (1993) stated that this approach tends to be teacher-centered as that the focus is on content that would require the students to examine the cultural background of a text, thus demanding a large input from teachers. Activities that can be done through this approach are lectures, explanation, note-reading and criticism by using workbooks or activities designed by teachers. Carter and McRae (1996) added that this approach and activities are usually done for the purpose of examination that fits the purpose of teaching literature in Malaysia.

          Personal-response approach is more to elicit the students' personal opinion on the text that they have read (Hirvela, 1996). Hirvela (1996) also added that the students would interpret the meaning that the author' intention in the text when using the personal-response approach. It is also said that this approach is associated with Personal Growth Model as proposed by Carter and Long (1991) which aims to draw out students' personal response and foster students' personal development. 

          Language-based approach in simple word is using the literary texts as a resource for stimulating language activities (Maley & Duff, 1990). The studies have identified that this approach is the least approach that teachers used to teach literature. Reasons were given that this approach did not teach the literature to the students but it is more to improve the students' language proficiency. 

          Paraphrastic approach is one of the approaches that I have used during my teaching practice in school. This approach basically deals with the surface meaning of the text. This approach enables the teachers to paraphrase the text in simpler words to get the students to understand the text. I usually use this approach with the weaker English proficiency students as they tend to get lost in the original literary text language which are a bit advanced or higher level of English language. Some activities that can be used using this approach are re-telling the literature using simpler words, translation into other mother tongue (L1) and reading paraphrased version or notes provided in the workbooks or from the teacher.

          Moral-philosophical approach makes the students search for moral values found in the literary text while reading it. This approach fulfills one of the purposes of teaching and learning literature, to instill the moral values in the students. From this approach itself, students can elicit their personal response about the values that they get from the text and elicit heir evaluation on what they should do or not do based on their readings (Parwathy et al., 2004).

          Lastly, the stylistic approach is an approach which guides the students to understand better and appreciate the literary text using the combination of the linguistic analysis and literary critics (Lazar, 1993). This means that the students are taught on how the author conveys the messages to the readers through the linguistic forms in his/her literary text. Lazar (1993) said that there are two reasons for using this approach. Firstly, it enables the students to make meaningful interpretation and look beyond the surface meaning of the literary text, or in other words, think outside the box. Secondly, it helps to expand students' knowledge and awareness of the language used in the literary text.

          Now that we have been familiarized some of the approaches used by some teachers in Malaysia in teaching literature, I hope that teachers who are teaching literature can implement these approaches in their literature class in order to make the most out of the literature teaching and learning among the Malaysian students.

Tuesday, 5 November 2013

Anticipate students' concerns in learning literature: "I don't understand this short story."

          Have you been in a class that a student does not pay attention to your teaching or did not know how to answer the related literature question when you asked them? You assume that maybe this student did not pay his/her attention in the class during your lesson or the strategy that you use did not attract them to the lesson. Do you know that some students do have their concerns in learning literature? Let's take a look at an example from my experience of learning literature recently. I have been asked to read a short story entitled "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. When I first read the title, I thought of the common lottery where people vote by ballot. As I kept on reading until paragraph 3, I noticed the characters in the story were farmers. The setting of the story was on 27th of June 1948 and it was in countryside.

          At first, I could not imagine the story line and as a result I got lost at some points of the story. But as I read through it, I began to understand the flow of the story. I can imagine and visualize the story too. I kept on reading it until the end, and suddenly I went blank. I said to myself, 'This is it? That's the end of the story? But why? Why did it happen?'. The ending of the story was so impactful that I have decided to do some research on it.

          Let's say that I put myself as a student here. As you can see, I have the first impression of the short story and at some point I struggled  in reading the story. We could also put them in other words as the problems that students might encounter when reading short stories. A teacher should able to anticipate problems that students might encounter when choosing the literary works. According to Lazar (2002), she summarizes some of the problems that a group of teachers anticipate that their students would have encountered when reading a short story. Some of the problems are in the aspect of motivation, comprehension and making interpretations and these are also the problems among the Malaysian students. 

          We will start from the motivation aspect. The said teachers believe that the students have lack of confidence in reading the short story in English. In my opinion, they do not feel motivated enough to read the English short story is because they do not have the competency of the language itself. Other than that, the teachers also believe that the content of the story is also uninteresting to them. Some short stories do not attract them as they are quite difficult to understand in terms of the language, whether it is simple English language or classic English language. The teachers also believe that the students think that the short stories are not relevant or important for them to pass the exams in English, so they do not want to read them. Besides that, teachers also believe that the students do not read much in their own language (mother tongue / L1).

          From the comprehension aspect, the teachers believe that the students would have problems in following the plot of the story. Sometimes, this happens because of the story did not follow the rules of the plot where we have the exposure, rising actions, climax, falling actions and resolution. It is just the same with the story that I have read, ''The Lottery'' where it just ended with climax and left me hanging with questions. Besides the problems of following the plot, students also might face the problems in understanding the characters, the vocabulary and the role of the narrator. About the problems of understanding the characters, not all students are exposed with other cultures besides their own culture. Thus it makes them feel lost in the story. For problems with the vocabulary, most of the time students will encounter this with the classic English literature where the language was very much different with the modern English language.

          In the aspect of making interpretations, the teachers believe that the students do not have the confidence to make their own interpretations about the story. Sometimes this is happens because of the lack of creative and critical thinking skills. Besides that, the students are also believed to be coping with ambiguity about the meaning of certain words in the story. Therefore, they cannot make their own interpretations which are important in understanding the literature such as the short story. From the experience that I have encountered and the teachers beliefs about students' problems mentioned, teachers out there need to consider these problems and make plans about the strategies that they need to incorporate in their lesson of the literature said, especially short stories.

Saturday, 2 November 2013

Strategies in teaching literature in high school (or for young adults)

          Literature can be taught to many people from different kinds of background; whether race, gender, education background or age. However, the types of literature can be different according to the types of targeted group. Toddlers or young learners will be able to learn simple literature like Winnie The Pooh, or other stories that teacher might recommended; which in this case I recommended Walt Disney's stories (for example, Peter Pan). When they grow up into teenagers; which is another word for high school students or young adults; they will be able to learn something that have new and wide vocabularies such as Harry Potter series, Chronicles of Narnia series or something classic like The Secret Garden and The Great Gatsby.

          As a student teacher myself, I have done my teaching practice during my study in UPSI. During the teaching practice, I have been teaching two form 2 classes and two form 4 classes. Some of the literary works I have taught are In The Midst of Hardship (by Latiff Mohidin), He Had Such Quiet Eyes (by Bibsy Soenharjo), One is One and All Alone (by Nicholas Fisk) and QWERTYUIOP (by Vivien Alcock). Since it was my first time in teaching literature, I referred to many revision books and teacher guide books in teaching literature for secondary school.
    
          One of the strategies that I have found and regularly used for my classes was previewing the plot of the short stories or novels or drama before they read the story. I used the five stages plots, which are; exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. Before I teach the literature to them in class, I have done my homework about it and divided the story in five sections to slowly guide them through the story. On the first day of teaching the literary work, I introduced the first chapter or the exposition part of the story. I also told them that during the exposition stage, the author usually introduces the characters in the story. Apart from introducing the exposition part itself, I also have done some activities with them based on the literary works themselves.

          I have found several strategies that teachers can use in teaching literature in Beach, Appleman, Hynds and Wilhelm (2006). Before the teacher starts the lesson, she/he can conduct vocabulary exercise based on the vocabulary items found in the story. This is to enable the students to read the story on their own with less interruption on the flow and understanding the story. Some students can understand the unfamiliar words using contextual clues but what about the lower level of English proficiency? Most of them still need the dictionary to understand the words in the story. Thus, teachers can apply this strategy following the preview of the plot of the story, so that the students will understand and follow the flow of the story little by little (or bit by bit?).

           

Wednesday, 30 October 2013

My philosophy in teaching literature for young adults.

"I realised the amazing power of literature and of the human imagination generally: to make the dead live and to stop the living from dying."
- by IVAN KLIMA, Love and Garbage

Read more at notable-quotes.com


"I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's very far away, who's a different color, who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders."
Read more at brainyquote.com

          The quotes above have greatly inspired me in developing my own philosophy. Like the blog's title itself, 'literature is life, life is literature', literature can teach one about life; either about the modern life or the life before the World War. When one says the word literature, what comes to mind? For me, literature makes you think. It makes you ponder. What do I ponder about? About everything; about relationships, responsibilities, differences, sameness; about life as a whole. Literature teaches you how to think critically about some things. It tells you everything under one genre. It tells you about moral values and humanity, and about history and facts.

          The second quote tells that it is one of the purposes of reading literature, to get to know something that is far beyond our reach. For example, I do not like history subject that much before this. But when I have read some literature works, I began to questions the actions that happened in the story like; 'Why did this person do that?' or 'What is happening at that particular time of the story?'. I came across all of these questions while reading and watching literature works such as the animation A Monster In Paris and Anastasia and the writing works such as The Great Gatsby and Heart of Darkness. Most of the time, after I have watch or read those literature works, I will search for the story behind the animation or the text itself. This is because most of the literature are stories of people who might have been living through a particular era of history. However, when the story is made into film, the facts may have been altered to make the story more interesting.