Since this thesis is focused on using literature in a language classroom, I would like to start with some definitions of the literature and their meaning.
One of the definitions
is: “Literature could be said to be a sort of disciplined technique forarousing certain emotion.”[[1]] It is supposed that literature provides
wonderful source of materials for eliciting strong emotional responses from our
students. It is definitely true that using literature in the classroom is a
fruitful way of involving the learner as a whole person, and provides excellent
opportunities for the learners to express their personal opinions, reactions
and feelings.
It is believed that
literary texts may have a powerful function in raising moral and ethical
concerns in the classroom. The tasks and activities we devise to exploit these
texts should encourage our students to explore these concerns and connect them
with the struggle for a better society as another definition explains us:“Literature, fiction, poetry, whatever, makes justice in the world.”[[2]]
1.1 Why use literature in the language classroom?
In many countries around
the world, literature is highly valued. It exposes students to complex themes
and fresh, unexpected uses of language. Literature can involve students and it
may elicit a powerful emotional response from students. Moreover, if the
materials are carefully chosen, students will feel that what they do in the
classroom is relevant and meaningful to their own lives.
I have examined the most
important reasons for using literature in several books and I summarize them in
the following chapters.
1.1.1 Motivating material
Students of English may
experience a real sense of achievement at tackling literary materials in the
classroom. Asking students to retell short stories from their own culture, for
example, before getting them to read an authentic story in English on a similar
theme, could be highly motivating. Furthermore, as Ellis[[3]] proves, “literature is a useful tool in
linking fantasy and the imagination with the student’s real world. It provides
a way of enabling children to make sense of their everyday life and forge links
between home and school.”
1.1.2 Encouraging language acquisition
Literature may provide a
particularly appropriate way of stimulating the acquisition, as it provides
meaningful and memorable contexts for processing and interpreting new language.
As Lazar[[4]] mentioned the use of literary texts is often a
particularly successful way of promoting activities where students need to
share their feelings and opinions, such as discussions and groupwork. I
supposed this is because literature is very rich in multiple levels of meaning.
Focusing on a task, which demands that students express their own personal
responses to these multiple levels of meaning, can only serve to accelerate the
students’ acquisition of language.
1.1.3 Educating the whole person
As the practical partillustrates, literature may have a wide educational function in the classroom
and it can help to stimulate the imagination of the students, to develop their
critical abilities and to increase their emotional awareness. If we ask
students to respond personally to the texts we give them, they will become
increasingly confident about expressing their own ideas and emotions in
English. Moreover, as Lazar[[5]] stated, “they will feel empowered by their
ability to grapple with the text and its language, and to relate it to the
values and traditions of their own society.”
Other reasons for using
literature can be the fact that it helps students to understand another
culture, it develops students’ interpretative abilities, it expands students’
language awareness, and it encourages students to talk about their opinions and
feelings.
1.2 Possible approaches
There are descriptions
of three possible approaches and their methodological principles as the
specialists describe them[[6]]:
1.2.1 A language-based approach
Detailed analysis of thelanguage of the literary text will help students to make meaningful
interpretations or informed evaluations of it. At the same time, students are
encouraged to draw on their knowledge of English, so this approach may provide
useful revision of grammar and vocabulary in new interesting contexts. Theadvantage is that students are provided with analytic tools and they reach
their own interpretations. But on the other hand, the fact that this approach
could become very mechanical cannot be contradicted, primarily if applied too
rigidly and the analysis of the text is undertaken in purely linguistic terms
with little chance for personal interpretation.
1.2.2 Literature as content
This is the most
traditional approach, frequently used in tertiary education. Literature itself
is the content of the course, which concentrates on areas such as the history
and characteristics of literary movements; the social, political and historical
background to a text; literary genres and rhetorical devices, etc. Students
acquire English by focusing on the course content, particularly through reading
set texts and literary criticism relating to them. In addition, students are
exposed to a wide range of authentic material. Unfortunately, materials may be
very difficult linguistically, and therefore demotivating for the average
student. The teacher is recommended to paraphrase, clarify and explain the text
but this may result in very little student participation.
1.2.3 Literature for personal enrichment
Literature is a usefultool for encouraging students to draw in their own personal experiences,
feelings and opinions. It helps students to become more actively involved both
intellectually and emotionally in learning English, and hence aids acquisition.
It is also an excellent stimulus for groupwork. It is proved that involving
learner as a whole person is potentially highly motivating.
Still, some drawbacks
may occur. Some texts may be so remote from the students’ own experience that
they are unable to respond meaningfully to them, or some students may dislike
having to discuss personal feelings or reactions.
1.3 Reading
1.3.1 What is reading
Since the Diploma thesis
deals with a reading programme, I feel a necessity of defining what a reading
exactly is. Harmer[[7]] states that: “Reading is an exercise dominated
by the eyes and the brain. The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to
work out the significance of these messages.”
Unlike, for
example, a listening text, a reading text moves at the speed of the reader. In
other words it is up to the reader to decide how fast he wants to read a text,
whereas a listener often has to do his best with a text whose speed is chosen
by the speaker. The fact that reading texts are stationary is clearly a huge
advantage.
1.3.2 Vocabulary
Vocabulary is a major
component of reading ability with which language learners will experience
difficulty, but as Hedge[[8]] asserts: “the degree of difficulty will vary
with the demands of the text, the prior knowledge of the readers, any
specialist lexical knowledge a student might have, and the learner’s first
language. A major strategy in helping students to build vocabulary for reading
is to encourage them to develop strategies for guessing word meanings from
contextual clues and background knowledge.”
But as I have examined,
most students, have had the experience of using a dictionary with a text
containing a lot of new items and, after checking all the new words, they still
have little idea of the meaning of the text as a whole.
Although it may be a
good idea to leave students to guess the meaning of a few words from context, I
agree with Lewis[[9]] who suggests, in order to do this they have
first to be able to understand the majority of the text.
Nation and Coady[[10]] propose a five-step sequence to help learners
when they are dealing with a text which they can follow with reasonable
comprehension and to which they bring some background knowledge:
·
Finding
the part of speech of the unknown word.
·
Looking
at the immediate context of the unknown word and simplifying this context if
necessary.
·
Looking
at the wider context of the unknown word. This means looking at the
relationship between the clause containing the unknown word and surrounding
classes and sentences.
·
Guessing
the meaning of the unknown word.
1.3.3 The goals for the reading
In the light of insights
into the reading process and onto how successful readers interact with texts,
Hedge[[11]] mentions a set of general learning goals for
the reading component of an English language course could include:
·
to
be able to read a range of texts in English
·
to
adapt reading style according to range of purposes and apply different
strategies (e.g. skimming, scanning) as appropriate
·
to
build a knowledge of language (e.g. vocabulary, structure), which will
facilitate development of greater reading ability
·
to
build schematic knowledge in order to interpret texts meaningfully
·
to
take a critical stance to the content of texts.
To achieve these goals,
it is recommended by Hedge that teachers should help learners to motivate
reading by selecting or creating appropriate texts, to design useful reading
tasks, to set up effective classroom procedures, to encourage critical reading,
and to create a supportive environment for practicing reading. Each learner
will have different strengths to build on and different weaknesses to overcome.
1.3.4 Reading as a purposeful process
Pugh[[12]]
and Lunzer and Gardner[[13]] described various styles of reading, and
their terminology for these has been taken into English language teaching
methodology:
·
Receptive reading is undertaken, for example, when a
reader wants to enjoy a short story, follow a line of argument in a newspaper
editorial, or understand the main stages in a textbook description of a
manufacturing process.
·
Reflective reading involves episodes of reading the
text and then pausing to reflect and backtrack, for example, when a reader
wants to check whether a new line of argument in a political text is consistent
with opinions expressed earlier in the same article.
·
Skim reading is used to get a global impression
of the content of a text. An example would be previewing a long magazine
article by reading rapidly, skipping large chunks of information, and focusing
in headings and first lines of paragraph.
·
Scanning involves searching rapidly through a text to
find a specific point of information, for example, the relevant times on a
timetable, items in a directory, or key points in an academic text.
It is now standard
practice in English language teaching methodology to consider real purposes for
reading outside the classroom and to build these into reading activities.
Rivers and Temperley[[14]] for example, in an early discussion of reading
pedagogy, make the point that: “reading activities, from the beginning, should
have some purpose and we should concentrate on the normal purposes of reading”.
Moreover, they list the following purposes: to get information; to respond to
curiosity about a topic; to follow instructions to perform a tasks; for
pleasure, amusement, and personal enjoyment; to keep in touch with friends and
colleagues; to know what is happening in the world; and to find out when and
where things are.
I have to assert that
even where it is difficult to identify any needs, there may be strong
motivational reasons for giving students a range of purposes for reading and,
consequently, for presenting them with a variety of texts, for example,
brochures, articles, schedules, poems, short stories, maps, and diagrams.
Traditionally, many
textbook materials focus on intensive study of texts rather than encouraging
the flexibility of style that learner would use when reading in their first
language. Now it is common to find activities which encourage different speeds
of reading, and different degrees of pre-reading and re-reading, and searching
through the text.
More importantly,
however, it is now recognized that one text may be read in a variety of styles
and readers can apply the appropriate strategies[[15]].
1.3.5 Reading literature cross-culturally
It was pointed out that readers
invariably interpret texts in the light of their own world-view and cultural
experience. It was also mentioned that the relationship between a literary text
and the culture in which it is produced is highly complex, since few texts are
mere factual representations of their culture.
Lazar[[16]] made a list of some cultural aspects to
consider when using literary texts with students.
·
“objects
or products that exist in one society, but no in another (cucumber sandwiches)
·
proverbs,
idioms, formulaic expressions which embody cultural values (Moon, may your face
meeting mine…)
·
social
structures, roles and relationships (role of women, hierarchies based on wealth
or rank, relationships between parents and children)
·
customs,
rituals, traditions, festivals (Thanksgiving day)
·
humour”
2. Extensive Reading Approach
Earlier, in the
pre-communicative era, the student of a foreign language was the recipient of
knowledge about grammar and vocabulary. More recent models of language teaching
and learning have produced approaches to syllabus design and classroom practice
which have taken account of real-world needs, and have tended increasingly to
put the learner at the centre of the process. Literature, meanwhile, has either
been exiled to a separate domain in the curriculum or has been marginalized in
the language classroom.
2.1 Distinguish between intensive and extensive reading
According to Lewis[[17]], intensive reading means that “students are
expected to understand everything they read and to be able to answer detailed
vocabulary and comprehension questions. Intensive reading activities in the
classroom, on texts which are usually not more than a page or so in length, are
intended to train students in the strategies needed for successful reading,
such as using connectives for predicting content or guessing the meanings of
unfamiliar words using clues in the surrounding text.” Teachers can train
reading strategies in this way but, in my opinion, it is only through more
extensive reading that learners can gain substantial practice in operating
these strategies more independently on a range of material.
Extensive reading means
students have a general understanding of the text without necessarily
understanding every word. In other words, intensive reading helps to improve
extensive reading, but the latter also needs to be practiced in its own right,
principally to give students confidence in dealing with authentic materials.
2.2 Defining extensive reading
A key issue emerging
from research studies has been that of defining exactly what is meant by the
term “extensive reading”. As I have studied the literature, I have found out
that there is a lack of consensus among writers on the subject. Some use the
term confusingly to describe skimming and scanning activities on longer texts
read during class time. Bright[[18]] relates it to “quantity of material”, for
example, fifty books per year. Krashen[[19]] specifies time, for example “an hour per
evening” or Hedge[[20]] regards it with “individual silent reading
periods in class”.
Clearly the precise
nature of extensive reading will vary with student motivation and institutional
resources, but an ideal characterization might include the following:
·
reading
large quantities of material, whether short stories and novels, newspaper and
magazine articles, or professional reading
·
reading
consistently over time on a frequent and regular basis
·
reading
for general meaning, primarily for pleasure, curiosity, or professional
interest
·
reading
longer texts during class time but also engaging in individual, independent
reading at home, ideally of self-selected material.[[21]]
2.2.1 Building a rationale for extensive reading
I think that
the idea that learners can develop their language knowledge through extensive
reading is attractive for several reasons. First, it allows learners to follow
their interests in choosing what to read and thus increase their motivation for
learning. Second, it provides the opportunity for learning to occur outside the
classroom.
Perhaps the
strongest argument is the role it plays in developing reading ability. Clearly
authentic reading texts will provide an authentic reading challenge but graded
material can also be useful. Further arguments can be added to this. Involving
learners in programmes of extensive reading can be a highly productive step
towards autonomous learning. If students have a chance to read at home or to
read silently in school, they are engaging in an activity which will yield
substantial possibilities for them to go on learning by themselves. Extensive
reading offers the learner many ways of working independently.
The
opportunities that extensive reading affords learners of all ages and levels of
language proficiency make it a useful resource. Learners can build their
language competence, they can progress in their reading ability, become more
independent in their studies, acquire cultural knowledge, and develop
confidence and motivation to carry on learning. With young learners there is a
further value. Introducing children to books, whether in their first or a
second language, contributes to the curriculum objective of encouraging
critical thinking and positive attitudes towards imaginative experience.[[22]]
2.2.2 The Role of Extensive Reading in Language Learning
- It can provide 'comprehensible input'
Krashen[[23]] argues that “extensive reading will lead to
language acquisition, provided that certain preconditions are met. These
include adequate exposure to the language, interesting material, and a relaxed,
tension-free learning environment.”
- It increases the students' exposure to the language
The quality of exposure to language
that learners receive is seen as important to their potential to acquire new
forms from the input. Elley[[24]] views provision of large quantities of reading
material to children as fundamental to reducing the 'exposure gap' between L1
learners and L2 learners. He reviews a number of studies with children between
six and twelve years of age, in which subjects showed rapid growth in language
development compared with learners in regular language programs. There was a
"spread of effect from reading competence to other language skills -
writing, speaking and control over syntax."
- It helps to build confidence with extended texts
As the practice shows, much
classroom reading work has traditionally focused on the exploitation of shorts
texts, either for presenting lexical and grammatical points or for providing
students with limited practice in various reading skills and strategies. However,
a large number of students require reading longer texts and books. Kembo[[25]] points to “the value of extensive reading in
developing students’ confidence and ability in facing these longer texts.”
2.2.3 Extensive reading and class time
It is in the nature of
extensive reading that most of it is done outside class, in the students’ own
time. But a necessary part of the process of encouraging extensive reading is
that initially the reading should be motivated and then regularly monitored, so
that rhythms of reading are built up and class interaction on the reading
developed. Reading strategies are also devised, applied and refined during the
whole extensive reading process.
How much class time can
be dedicated to extensive reading must depend on the teaching situation,
curriculum requirements and, indeed, on individual teachers and classes.[[26]]
2.2.4 Preparing the learners
Preparing the learners
for reading is considered one of the most important things. Most students need
help on making the leap from teacher-guided, close study of short texts to
individual reading of whole books. Ellis[[27]] determines three areas in which students will
probably need preparation:
a) psychological preparation –
activities to encourage thinking about their approaches to reading and building
confidence for reading independently.
b) methodological preparation –
training in some of the skills and strategies needed for effective reading.
c) practice in self-direction –
guidance on deciding what to read, how to read, and how to evaluate and monitor
progress.
AD a) Psychological preparation
Many students find
reading in a foreign language difficult and laborious. Typical student
reactions are: “There are too many new words I don’t understand!”, “It takes me
too long and I give up”. It is important that students are helped to become
aware of and to understand, the reasons for these attitudes. Ask them what sort
of books they enjoy reading in their mother tongue and how they read them.
Information gathered can enable students to choose appropriate books and
identify their reading problems.
AD b) Methodological preparation
The following
suggestions can help students become aware of strategies such as previewing,
predicting, guessing the meaning of unknown words and developing vocabulary.
-
previewing
– involves looking at the title and the cover, reading information on the back
cover about the story and its author, examining the list of contents or chapter
headings, and glancing through the book to get an impression of layout.
-
predicting
– when we read in our mother tongue we predict unconsciously but we do not
often transfer this strategy when we read in a foreign language. The title,
cover, illustrations and linguistic clues can help us predict vocabulary and
the story-line.
-
guessing
unknown words – it is recommended to ask or tell the students which clues they
can use to guess the meaning of unknown words. For instance, visual support,
the position of the word in the sentence, the context, the type of the word or
words similar to words in the mother tongue are all useful clues.
-
using
a dictionary – each student should have access to a monolingual dictionary. It
is important to encourage students to use it for checking the meaning of a word
only after they work it out for themselves.
AD c) Practice self-direction
The students may not be
accustomed to making decisions about aspects of their own learning. Initially,
some may need guidance when choosing books. Try to find out about their
interests so you can help them select a book they will enjoy. If they have
difficulties in reading, it is suggested to try a book which contains visual
support or something they may not have previously considered such as a book of
puzzles or cartoons[[28]].
2.2.5 Motivating the student
It was already mentioned
that students need to see a point to reading, particularly to reading extended
texts. It is obvious that many school pupils have grown up in a world dominated
by television, magazines, comics, and romantic or adventure stories. These
media tend to provide immediate short-term satisfaction, they switch topic or
scene rapidly and do not demand sustained concentration. Reading literary texts
requires concentration over a period of time, it requires hard work from the
reader (often the text will need to be read more than once), and it requires
considerable patience. As the practice shows, many teachers rightly see the
task of encouraging students to read literature as a difficult and demanding
one.
I totally agree with
Hedge[[29]] who says that “one important principle is that
students will be motivated to read if the process of reading is related to them
as individuals. In short, students’ motivation increases with their involvement
into the subject. Students want to enjoy the subject, they want to succeed in it
and they want to be involved in the learning process and, as far as possible,
have a chance to influence what happens, and how it happens.”
2.2.6 Recommendations for the extensive reading
According to Alan
Pulverness[[30]] (who is an associate trainer with the Norwich
Institute for Language Education in UK) teachers should focus on getting
learners to the point where they are ready to read. This can be achieved in a
number of different ways: by exploring themes – finding out what students
already know, activating appropriate schemata by speculating on titles, key
words, opening sentences; anticipating and predicting so that in sense they are
constructing alternative texts. In all these ways the mental work starts long
before the students actually start reading. And when they do finally come to
read the text, they read more receptively – and more intelligently – confirming
or rejecting their hypotheses, making connections, having already established a
mental framework within which they can begin to negotiate the potential
meanings in the text.
Then, it is recommended
to offer learners ways of interacting creatively in the texts they read. The
idea that readers become co-writers of the texts they read is actualized in one
chapter of Claire Kramsch’s[[31]] Context and Culture in Language Teaching, where
she proposes a series of “variations” that learners can be invited to
experiment with: varying medium or genre, varying point of view, varying text
time, varying audience, varying the referential world of the text and what she
calls teasing out the voices in the text. The main idea here is that the
learner is placed in the position of the writer, facing all the same decisions
and all the same choices.
In Textual Intervention,
Rob Pope[[32]] bases “an entire methodology for teaching
literature on the same principle: learners can be asked to change titles and
openings, to provide alternative endings, to extend or expand texts by adding
“prequels”, sequels and interludes, to intervene at a deeper level and to
experiment with all kinds of options open to the writer – seeing, for example,
how the effect of a text changes when the gender or identity of the narrator is
altered, when speech roles are redistributed, when direct speech is rendered as
indirect, or vice versa, when narrative “comments” are added or removed, or
when the whole discourse frame is altered.”
2.3 Types of tasks helping to develop reading ability
As Williams[[33]] mentions in his book, “it is now standardpractice in the design of reading tasks to use a three-phrase procedure
involving pre-, while-, and post-reading stages.” I suppose this intention is
to ensure that reading is “taught” in the sense of helping readers develop
increasing ability to tackle texts. This is in contrast to more traditional
materials in which reading would be “tested” through a procedure in which
learners would read a text with or without an introduction, possibly with some
pre-teaching of vocabulary, and then would be required to answer comprehension
questions.
2.3.1 Pre-reading
Pre-reading stage builds
interest in and curiosity about characters, places, themes, and action. During
the pre-reading phase, learners can be encouraged to do a number of things:
become oriented to the context of the text; establish a reason for reading; express
an attitude about the topic; activate existing cultural knowledge; and become
familiar with some of the language in the text. Hedge[[34]] suggests that in this way the teacher can
prepare the students in terms of both schematic and language knowledge, and
ensure purposeful reading. The teachers can select or combine from a
repertoire, for example: talking about pictures accompanying the text;
predicting from the title; agreeing or disagreeing with a set of proposals
about the topic; answering a set of questions or a quiz.
Interest in a reader
cannot be assumed and the teacher should be aware of the negative effect a
lengthy, foreign text can have on some students. As the practical part shows,
games, humour, visuals, puzzles, role play and other unusual approaches can
motivate students’ interest as well as providing opportunities for reflection
and insight.
Greenwood[[35]] remarks an important point that “the
pre-reading stage is important as it can provide a need to read to complete an
activity or confirm an idea; and it can persuade the students that as far as
perception or hypothesis is concerned there are no accurate or wrong answers,
only different ones.”
2.3.2 While reading
More recently,
since the adoption of the idea of reading as an interactive process,
while-reading activities have been used: these generally aim to encourage
learners to be active as they read.
In recent
years students have been encouraged to respond more subjectively to Readers.
Unfortunately, as I have explored it, a large number of teachers still consider
the Reader to be simply a longer text for comprehension questions or an
opportunity to practice reading aloud. However, reading is not a passive skill.
When we read we search for meaning, drawing upon the complex network of
associations which native speakers have at their disposal. Students should be
actively engaged in negotiation for meaning. I agree with Greenwood[[36]]
who claims that “students must be taught how to read and respond to books and
not simply to answer questions. During lessons students must be involved in
activities which enable them to respond cognitively, emotionally and
imaginatively to imaginative writing.”
Students can be given
activities which require them to do any of the following: follow the ideas in a
text; react to the opinions expressed; understand the information it contains;
ask themselves questions; make notes; confirm expectations or prior knowledge;
or predict the next part of the text from various clues. Hedge[[37]] introduces “there are few research studies to
show the effects of intervention, and their outcomes are contradictory.
However, many students report positively on the usefulness of while-reading
activities and many teachers therefore try to encourage activity, reflection,
and response while reading.”
2.3.3 After reading
According to Hedge[[38]], “post-reading activities can be as varied as
the texts they follow, but ideally will tie up with the reading purpose set, so
that students check and discuss activities done while reading and make use of
what they have read in a meaningful way, for example, by discussing their
response to the writer’s opinions or by using notes for a writing activity.”
After that, a wide range of activities focusing either on the content of the
text can be undertaken, for example, debate, role-play, reading of contrasting
texts, or focusing on its language.
Students can acquire
confidence and flair with language of allowed explaining where their opinions
originated. As Leland Roloff[[39]] mentions in his book: “The language of
literature should enable a student to enter inner worlds which become real to
the perceiver.” Students should be able to enter the “inner worlds” without the
traditional teaching method of comprehension checks. Instead they could be more
actively engaged in negotiation for potential meaning, both individually and
with other students.
2.4 Selecting materials
2.4.1 Criteria for selecting texts
Theselection of an appropriate literary text seems to be crucial for the success
of literary lessons. Access to an abundance of interesting texts is an ideal
but unfortunately, not all teachers will be able to meet it. R. William[[40]] makes a key point relating to principles for
the reading lesson: “in the absence of interesting texts, very little is
possible”. With regard to the two questions “What kind of texts do we use in
the classroom?” and “How do we create reading purposes for those texts?”
teachers may have little flexibility in addressing the first, but every teacher
will need to consider the second carefully, as this might be the key to
motivating students to read texts which they would not normally find
interesting. Purposes can be contrived to create interest.
However, some teachers are able to
select texts which meet the specific needs of their learners. It is claimed
that where there is some freedom of choice, interest will be a key criterion on
selecting texts for learners. Hedge[[41]]
stated that many teachers have experimented successfully in asking learners to
find texts themselves which they think will interest the class. It is also
possible to discover the reading interests of learners through a “Reading
interest questionnaire” which asks learners about the genre they like to read
in their first language, for example, non-fiction, thrillers, or romance.
Another factor to be considered is
variety: of topic, of length of text, of rhetorical organization (for example,
description, review, comparison), and of reading purpose. Further, Ellis[[42]]
emphasizes the importance of visual support which contributes to the
understanding of a text is emphasized and it is suggested that the text should
allow the development of students' autonomy in learning and offer a concrete
outcome e.g. dramatization or a poster-design.
When speaking about selecting
materials for extensive reading, very important point is that the selected
materials must be interesting and enjoyable. One reason is motivational; the
more students are interested in and enjoy the reading they do, the less it
seems like work and the more reading they are likely to do.
Therefore, it is probably fairly
self-evident what is meant by criteria such as the age of students, their
emotional and intellectual maturity and their interests and hobbies. The only
difficulty when applying these categories to a whole class is that individual
students within a group may vary considerably in their maturity and interests.
Obviously, when selecting material it is needed to try to find texts that are
suitable for the majority of students in the class. As Lazar[[43]]
suggests “it is also possible to find that developing the facility for
self-access is one way of personalizing learning so that you can cater for the
range of student development and interests within a group. We may find,
however, that consideration of criteria involving the students’ cultural
background, linguistic proficiency and literary background is more complicated.
It is possible to:
-
give
students a list of certain literary texts with a brief summary of their
content, and ask them to select the ones they would like to study.
-
provide
students with a questionnaire designed to find out what kinds of material they
read in their own language and what they would like to read in English.
-
give
students a list of twenty to thirty topics and ask them to choose five that
they find interesting.
-
provide
opportunities within the classroom for personalization, by letting students
work individually on those tests which interest them the most.”
But as it was already
stated some students may dislike having to discuss personal feelings or
reactions. There may be all sorts of reasons why students are unwilling to give
their personal opinions or reactions in the classroom and we should bare them
in mind when selecting the materials. For instance, students may be individually
sensitive to particular issues raised in a text. Therefore, it is recommended
to get students working in small groups with some classes. In that case,
students may feel less stressed than talking to the class as a whole.
Alternatively, students could be asked to reveal their own reactions to a text
only when writing a short paragraph or essay for homework to be read only by
the teacher.
2.4.2 Authentic or simplified materials
In addition to this, it
is necessary to decide whether authentic or simplified materials will be used.
Unfortunately, many teachers are not sure about it. Some educators, for example
Haverson[[44]], discourage the use of non-authentic texts,
claiming “they are inferior as models of language and lack important cues for
interpretation present in most authentic texts. Moreover, authentic texts can
be a useful tool in language classes, even at lower levels, when text and task
type allow readers to be successful (e.g., scanning a TV guide for show times,
reading a newspaper article for gist).”
It is also proposed by Widdowson[[45]]
to “use authentic material to hand for teachers of students with more advanced
levels of language proficiency, especially those working with ESL learners in
an English language environment.” However, for EFL teachers with learners at
lower levels of language proficiency, the choice seems limited to pedagogic or
adapted readers. In choosing such material, the teacher is following the same
principle as when choosing a textbook of appropriate language level. Widdowson
makes this analogy: “Simplification is the pedagogic analogue of the linguist’s
idealization of data. The teacher simplifies by selecting and ordering the
linguistic phenomenon he is to deal with so as to ease the task of learning.”
The issue for most EFL
teachers, then, is how to choose readers from the many series available, so as
to ensure an acceptable quality of material for their learners. It is possible
to find readers for beginners in which stories are told in the present simple
or present continuous, hardly a natural use of these tenses. Consequently,
Hedge objected and another criticism which has been leveled, especially at
lower levels of series, is that „stories read more like lists than stories,
with simple sentences following one another disjointedly”[[46]]. I would dare to object at this point that
even if students must feel some degree of challenge, primarily, they should
feel comfortable when they read and just the simplified versions are very good
for it, in my opinion.
3. Practical part
3.1 The introduction
In this part of my
diploma thesis, I concentrate on the 6th, 7th, 8th
and 9th grade of the basic school and I suggest a book for each of
these grades with a short explanation of my decision. Further, this part
provides an example of the extensive reading programme which consists of a set
of specially tailored activities which have been designed and realized with two
classes.
The lesson plans are
based on the methods such as pair work, group work, discussion, predictions
etc. I will evaluate them and give a feedback from my pupils.
Moreover, the practical
part presents the results of the research of the effects of extensive reading
programme on the learners' reading, speaking and writing abilities and their
attitude to reading and language learning.
3.2 The Extensive reading programme at the basic school
3.2.1 The background of the reading programme
I started an extensive
reading programme in January 2009 and it was finished in March 2009. It became
a part of general English lessons. The main aim of this reading programme was
to give the students an opportunity to meet English language used in real
situations and to show that children can enjoy learning, as well as to develop
their positive attitudes towards reading and language learning. I have decided
to use multiple copies of the parts of the book for all students. After
students chose the topics that they were interested in by means of the pyramid
discussion, I prepared the text both containing the most interesting parts from
the diary and dealing with students’ preferred topics.
We read the texts mostly
at school and we worked with them every English lesson for four weeks. I
suppose that to read the text as a whole without any breaks is the best way how
to do it because students do not loose touch with the reading and with the
content of the book and, moreover, it is more natural. When people read a book,
they do not read it only on one day in a week, they read it whenever they can
and want.
3.2.2 Upper-primary Reading Scheme
3.2.3 Rationale for the chosen text
I have decided to do the
extensive reading programme with Townsend’s “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Aged 13 ¾”.
This book is an
unabashed glimpse into the troubled life of an adolescent. It focuses on the
worries and regrets of a teenager who believes himself to be an intellectual.
Adrian Albert Mole was born in 1967 and grew up with his parents in Leicester.
Adrian is an only child until the age of 15. He is an average boy in many ways,
not especially popular or sporty, but he does well enough at school and has
friends.
The book is written in a
diary style, it means there are discrete entries arranged by date reporting on
what has happened over the course of a day or other period.
When
choosing the book, I was mindful of the fact that students' interest in the
book is the most important factor. The life of Adrian Mole is very close to
them. His happiness as well as his troubles are like their own. They pass
through all the things that Adrian does. The story deals with values like love,
family, friends, health, help to old people, so that is why it involves
students and stimulates their interaction. Since the text challenges to one’s
personification, pupils can express their own feelings and emotions.
In addition, the text shows us also
cross-cultural relations between the British and the Czechs (different values,
cultural diversity, different school rules, etc.) The text can be easily read,
though it is in the original format.
•
The
6th grade: Both stories are connected with adventure and nature.
Pupils can remember their holidays in a camp or imagine the adventure that they
would like to experience.
• The 7th grade: The book
of Treasure Island inspires for many adventurous activities from the voyage on
the sea, survival on the island with the pirates to looking for the treasure.
All these activities motivate pupils and they enjoy reading very much.
• The 8th grade: The Bottle
Imp is a short story full of values and the perpetual contest between Good and
Evil which can enrich pupils very much. The Hobbit is simply a book that pupils
at this age love and they are keen on reading it.
• The 9th grade: Funny and
serious story at the same time (The Curious Incident) and mysterious and
interesting story (The Strange Case) are, in my opinion, very good choices to
read and investigate in more details for the ninth-graders
3.2.4 Class Profile
Two classes were
participating in the Reading programme. Both of them are the seventh graders.
One of them is a class that I normally teach in (Class 1) and the other class
is so called comparative class (Class 2). Class 1 consists of 15 boys and 3
girls and Class 2 consists of 11 boys and 6 girls. There are some differences
between these two classes. Class 1 is a “special class”, which is specialized
in math and physics. All pupils are very clever and many of them are talented.
Moreover, they are very well motivated to learning. Class 2 is a normal class
but they are good at English and their average mark in English is 1.2.
3.2.5 Programme Methods
The
programme was realised in ten 45-minute lessons. In the first introductory
lesson pupils completed an attitude questionnaire. Then eight lessons
concerning pre-/while-/post-reading activities followed and the last lesson
dealt with the finishing students’ posters, speaking about them and concluding
the whole programme with the final questionnaire. After every lesson, students
filled in the short questionnaire concerning the set goals, used techniques and
students’ interests.
Sometimes students were
assigned home reading. This was a base for the class activities. Sometimes we
read the text together at school. The class activities were aimed at the
achievement of the programme goals with the main emphasis on speaking and
writing activities.
- Programme Goals
• To develop positive attitudes towards
reading and learning English.
• To motivate students to read in
English for pleasure
• To develop fluent readers
• To improve students' reading,
speaking and writing skills.
• To improve students' understanding
of grammar and vocabulary
3.2.6 Assessment and Evaluation
The
students were assessed on the base of two main questionnaires, their reports
after every lesson, their performance in the class and their final assignment.
The first questionnaire (Appendix No. 1) that students filled in before starting
the reading programme contains questions about reading in general and questions
about reading in English. Students expressed their attitude towards reading and
their experience with reading in English or their worries of reading in
English. Farther, to see how much the students improved and to show their
progress, they were given the similar questionnaire after the reading programme
(Appendix No. 2).
Questionnairesthat were completed throughout the reading programme were other assessment
tools. These questionnaires contain six questions, two of which deal with the
set aims, another two questions focus on the used techniques and two questions
deal with students’ interests.
After
each lesson, students completed an Instant Book Report form (Appendix No. 3).
These were termed instant reports because students were encouraged to spend no
more than 5 minutes per report. Reports consisted chiefly of a two to three
sentence summary and a two to three sentence free personal response. Although
this was written in Czech, the summary gave students an opportunity to review
the story mentally and demonstrate general understanding. The free response
section called for students to go beyond simple comprehension and employ the
understanding in further reflection.
The
students were instructed to involve the questionnaires and their reports into
the language portfolios which they normally use in English lessons and in which
they have a file for the reading programme. The assessment of their work in the
reading programme was involved in the final grade.
Since
two classes participated in the reading programme, and both classes were given
the same assessment tools, I have compared them and presented the results at
the end of the practical part. (Appendix No. 4).
NB : INGIN VERSI LENGKAPNYA SILAHKAN REQUEST DI KOLOM KOMENTAR DAN TINGGALKAN ALAMAT E-MAIL SOBAT.....................
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