WHAT IS LITERATURE?

WHAT IS LITERATURE?

Literature gives great contribution for students’ personal growth and knowledge development. The role of the literature has grown wider and not only aim for learning language through the context. Thus, no wonder literature has become a compulsory lesson for secondary school students in Malaysia. Literature, in the form of poems, short stories, plays, novels can be said as beautiful arts that derived from human feelings and experiences about personal interest, moral values and cultural items. Indeed, literacy appreciation lesson will light up the atmosphere in the classroom by avoiding traditional chalk and talk classroom but the teacher, who is administering in literature teaching, need to be aware of the approaches that can be executed effectively in the classroom. Teachers also need to draw their attention to teaching elements when conducting a literature teaching and learning classroom.

            A good literature teaching classroom is guided by four elements, which are delivering authentic material in the classroom, using selected materials which are high in cultural and language enrichment and involving the students to the selected materials. Mostly, literary works are created based on real-life experience so when the students can relate the literature work to their experience, the learning process will be meaningful for them. Not only that, literature can let the students know more about how certain communication in different cultures take place by creating the background of the characters and social setting. A good literature teaching classroom also make sure the students perceive the diversity of the language in the form of lexical and syntactic function when they learn about the language through the context. The involvement of the students in the form of their expectation and interest in pursuing the development of the story is very important to draw them into the appreciation of literary works.

            Literature lesson is very important because it helps to polish students’ personality in overall especially in the aspects of appreciation and knowledge. From my point of view, literature elements have the power to move students’ heart and mind when they really appreciate the artwork. This is because every good literature work has valuable moral values and life experiences to learn from. Moreover, literature works add on students’ knowledge because the elements in literature have the function to teach, give messages and establish good values in them. For me, the objectives of literature teaching are to develop students’ interest in literacy work, their feeling and emotion features and develop their own ideas towards the learning materials. Literature not only rich in its language input but rich in its’ context. Literature is a very good platform and effective stimuli to encourage students to express themselves. Thus, good literature teaching and learning classroom must be carried out.

            In a good teaching classroom, students’ learning goals must be taken in to account. I think there are three fundamental students’ learning goals in teaching and learning process which are interpreting, contributing and managing. For example, students need to be able to interpret what they are learning during the lesson. They need to construct their own ideas and think critically. Just like a constructivist approach, students need to guide their own learning and connect their prior knowledge to the new knowledge they have just learned. Students’ learning goal in contributing ideas, engaging in literature learning classroom and communicating with other students also very important. Literature is well learned if it is learned by a group, where discussion is being carried out and sharing ideas between students will be facilitated. For good literature teaching, students must be able to manage their learning by giving response to the learning material and adapt the most suitable learning method to facilitate their literature learning. In order to guide the students in achieving students’ learning goals, teachers’ belief in conducting a lesson is extremely important because belief can guide teachers to apply a variety of effective teaching approaches.

            I believe in pragmatism and constructivism to construct a good literature classroom. Pragmatism, promoted by John Dewey, emphasized on executing various of interesting activities during teaching and learning rather than a traditional teacher-centered teaching method. I think by applying pragmatism in teaching, various learning approached in literature class will be conducted and students can discover their own learning preference. Furthermore, this belief put the position on learning, not just as the preparation for life but it is also for ongoing life. In addition, I also believe in constructivism theory. A constructivism learning is a student-centered learning where the students need to construct their own understanding during the learning process. In a literature class, understanding is very important as through understanding, they will be able to appreciate the artwork better. I believe a good literature classroom can work better with the combination of pragmatism and constructivism in the classroom as the learning will focus on the students’ development. The belief that I have will guide me to reach my personal teaching goals.

            As for me, I have 3 personal goals that I aimed to reach which are teaching, inspiring and changing. I love teaching and I like to deliver what I know to my students and I willing to improve my teaching methods to achieve my personal goals. So, for my first personal goal, I hope I can teach in a correct and effective method while students can enjoy their learning. Next, I hope I can inspire my students to like English like I do and I hope my students do not perceive English as just a communication medium but more than that. Gradually, I hope I can achieve my teaching goal by changing my students’ behavior from not so confident in speaking English to speak English confidently and from taking English learning as a burden to an enjoyment.

Thus, ways of lighting up the classroom’s atmosphere are very important to facilitate the learning process and achieve the learning goals. I believe by monitoring collaborative learning and group work in class, active learning classroom will be established as the students will having a discussion and generating ideas among themselves. Then, an active classroom will change students’ behavior to talk more related to the lesson with their friends in the class. Next, the use of combination of media such as video, graphic, audio and text also can attract students in literature learning process. By giving pictures and presenting animation related to the literary artwork, students can draw the scenes in their mind and get a better understanding. For example, when students understand how to use the language to illustrate a series of pictures in a short story, they will be more confident and inspired to learn and like the language.

How to intend effective strategies to promote literacy learning for students? For me, the teacher needs to conduct an interesting learning lesson to promote effective learning. Teachers need to search for more teaching approaches so that students will not get bored for having the same learning method in every lesson. By using a variety of learning approaches, the teacher not only can challenge themselves in handling the students and classroom atmosphere but the students also will be more attracted to the lesson. If a teacher uses different interesting teaching methods in literature classes, the students will explore the literacy element better and will be able to understand better. There are a few ways to carry out an interesting lesson. For example, the teacher can give some pictures of the short stories and encourage the students to generate their own ideas about the pictures in groups. In this form of activity, the students will be able to participate actively and work with their friends. Next, the teacher also can conduct games based on literary art piece in class. The teacher can prepare a big puzzle and the students can work in group to generate ideas and solve the puzzle under teacher’s guide. The teacher also can teach the students about moral values of the story as every literature work has its own moral values that can guide the students to be a better person in their life. The new teaching approaches and the innovation in teacher’s teaching can definitely promote student’s learning. However, each teaching approach that invented by the teacher need to be equivalent to students’ proficiency and their intellectual level. For the example, in teaching a poem, the teacher can construct the lesson by preparing storyboards, bringing related authentic materials into the classroom and reciting the poem in the right intonation for Form One and Form Two students. So, in order to guide teacher’s teaching approaches, the teacher can apply their teaching based on few literature models.

            Generally, there are three models in literature teaching which are cultural model, language model and personal growth model. Among all the models, I am more attracted to the personal growth model. Literature learning through this model is more to learning for own sake. In other words, literature learning based on personal growth model is not exam oriented learning. I like this model because it is more student-centered and they are encouraged to read for themselves. Through this model, I think the students can learn literature better through this model because they are learning by relating the elements in the literary work to their own life experience so they can understand the lesson better. As a teacher, I need to relate the lesson to the students so that, they can feel the meaningfulness of the lesson they learned. Then, the students will start to evaluate what they have learned and learn the moral values from the literacy work. However, teachers need to keep finding for new information on teaching approaches to try on their students.

            Last but not least, it is not an easy job for a teacher to conduct an interesting and relevant lesson. The teacher needs to pay attention to the proficiency level, intellectual level, interest and students’ preference in how they pursue knowledge. The teacher can apply their ideas about how to conduct a literature classroom since try and error is one of the ways to find the most suitable learning and teaching process for the students. In conclusion, literature learning can be effective if the teacher can conduct the lesson in an appropriate way. But first, a good lesson must be planned by putting students’ cognitive and affective development as a priority.