Engaging Literary Text to Language Exposure for Foreign English Learners
Mister Gidion Maru
State University of Manado
Abstract
The teaching of English as a foreign language has always been uneasy work. In addition to the inappropriate teaching practice, the lack of contextual language exposure characterizes one of the hindrances in the English teaching and learning process for the foreign learners. Undoubtedly, it requires an alternative and creative way to meet the hindrance and to offer a solution as well. This paper attempts to provide an answer by proposing the use of literary text, which is frequently questioned as to its benefit for language teaching, to assist the engagement of students as foreign learners to the language exposure in order to arrive at the expected language skill and awareness. The inclusion of literary text in EFL class due to its authenticity, cultural enrichment, language enrichment and personal involvement, is assumed to bridge the students' lack of language exposure through interacting with the text. Besides serving the language learning dimensional benefits of literary text, this paper also touches teaching approach that might hamper the effectiveness of applying literary text in the EFL class. It is thought to be necessary for making the way for intensive use of literary text for foreign learners.
Introduction
For most Indonesian, the aim of learning English as a foreign language is to be able to communicate in English. This insight is related to the realization that English undoubtedly plays crucial role in international communication as well as in knowledge and technology transfer. The activity of send and receive message effectively and negotiate meaning among people, nowadays, has mostly carried out in English. On this ground, English has been taught in Indonesian schools for several decades. Yet, the long years with the attachment to English as a subject served from the elementary school level till university level remains far from the expected output; to correctly express oneself in a communication using the language. Some students still fail to utter what needs to utter in the manner that it should. Others are able to speak but they can not meet the required grammar and its proper use and vice versa. Students display an ability to employ the rules in English construction, however they confuse to apply them practically and pragmatically in communication process (Suciati: 2007). For instance, the use of “good night” which is literally translated synonymously to good evening by some students, thus, it goes beyond the appropriate use of that expression. In the school teaching context, the evaluation on the basic language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing and language areas i.e vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar in connection with the teaching of English as a foreign language shows poor achievement (Hismanoglu: 2005). The integrated ability in both language skill and language area as well as cultural awareness in the use of the language seems to be dream that has not been attained. These outputs illustrate that the teaching of English as a foreign language has been uneasy work.
Several factors are assumed to contribute the shaping of the outputs. The intervention of students’ native language that is different from English is seen as one of the ample factor. The absence of the tense orientation in Indonesian language has led students’ unawareness of time aspect in English constructions. Other factors such as big class, an excessive low number of English as a foreign language contact hours per week, behavioral problems on the part of the students, lack of resources, equipment and material, lack of sufficient support both from government and parents, teacher competence, curriculum designed merely to meet grading system or other purpose, for example, passing TOEFL or IELTS score (Artisiyanti: 2002, Suciati: 2008) shape the teaching of English as a foreign language to be a slippery road to pass. It is worsened by the fact that some teachers do not speak English at the moment of teaching (Doormer: 2007, Artsiyanti: 2002). Teachers solely employ a textbook as a learning source and rarely express themselves in English even for simple converse during the teaching session as well as act as the only one knows the text material used in the class position students as passive objects who have no opportunity to express their ideas, response and thought flourish the teaching and learning of English. The impact of having such teaching practice is the absence of socio-cultural context of the language in use, one of the bridges to master English. English Proficiency does not merely determine by the acquisition of the rules but also the awareness of the socio-cultural context surrounds the language.
The appropriate use of a particular expression in a particular language is closely related to the knowledge of cultural attributes of that language. As a speaker chooses words to say a certain notion, he is actually referring to a cultural reference. It is at this point that many foreign language learners show their mastery of rules yet, fail to express themselves appropriately. Realizing the disappointing outputs of teaching English as a foreign language and its cause factors, it is conspicuously detected that despite the interference of those various factors on the attempt to master English, acquiring the language rules is probably attained, but properly expressing oneself in English is far in need of language exposure that allows the awareness of socio-cultural context of the language. This raises the questions; how EFL learners find that? What technique or instrument possibly answers the need for language exposure? How teacher creates the language exposure in the classroom activities? How students are positioned for that purpose?. The answers for these questions may vary. Some parents prefer to send their children to English courses with the expectation to obtain additional English practice hours. Some suggest students to have partners of speaking through establishing speaking club for the purpose to activate speaking ability. Others choose to read more English books or writings or listening English songs to enhance vocabulary and improve reading and listening skill. The others of rich families decide to study abroad (Kompas.com, 13/04-2009) in order to get in touch directly with the language and its cultural circumstances. Surely each answer has its point. However, it seems to display other problems as to course and club quality, passive skill tendency, and cost.
Positioning Literary Text for Language Exposure in EFL
It has long been a widely held view that the level of proficiency attained in a foreign language is directly influenced by the amount of exposure the learner has to the target language in its natural settings. Exposure refers to the contact that the learner has with the language that they are trying to learn.
Language exposure allows practice and exhibition of language skills. It is incredible chance for language learners to make them understood and at the same time, understand what the others are talking to. At this point, an effective communication takes place. In other words, the purpose of learning foreign language, in this case, English is acquired. Hence, as questioned previously, concerning the making of the atmosphere for language exposure and considering the factors that influence language acquisition bear directly upon the choice of teaching strategies and the allocation of instructional resources (Al-Ansari: 2001), an alternative suggested to cope with bridging the exposure to language both for the learners and for teachers of English as a foreign language is by engaging literary text in the teaching and learning of EFL. According to Nazia Hussain (2007: 115) “literary texts are a rich source of classroom activities and can surely prove to be very motivating for learners”. Literary text does not only provide useful extracts for foreign language learning but also serves learners with attractions and curiosity. This defines the use of literary pieces to be significant in English language learning. Literature opens a new world to the students. It cultivates the critical abilities of the students. Since the ingredients of literature are taken from daily life, it touches every human dilemma, conflict and yearning unraveling the plot of a short story or decoding the dialogue of a play and is more than a mechanical exercise. It demands and challenges a personal response from the learners and encourages them draw on their own experiences. By doing so, learners become more personally invested in the process of language learning. Langer as quoted in Nazia Hussain (2007: 115) literature can open “horizons of possibility, allowing students to question, interpret, connect, and explore”. This emphasizes the positive contributions of a literary text as it exposes the learner to different registers, types of language use. An interesting and entertaining short story or a poem that conveys particular feeling or emotion can touch the learners’ heart instantly. Thus the language class becomes not only vibrant but also it reciprocates with spontaneity and enthusiasm. This spontaneity in learning leaves a lasting impact on the students’ mind which later accustoms them to an appropriate language interaction with their fellow foreign language learners. In this respect, it is necessarily quoting Wolfgang Izzer’s statement, “the meaning of a literary text is not a definable entity but if anything, a dynamic happening”(1978: 22). This trait of literary text strengthens the possibility of various responses of students in the presentation of literary text in the EFL class. An experienced teacher, by providing socio-cultural context of the text and more time allotment, will allow and facilitate as well as encourage students to explore their language skill and areas as well as analytical ability during the learning process. It is at this moment language exposure might make its way to the students’ experience. This stresses the contribution of literary text to the learning of English as a foreign language.
Ubakawa and Ishida (2003) quoting Povey argued, ”literature will increase all language skills because literature will extend linguistic knowledge by giving evidence of extensive and subtle vocabulary usage, and complex and exact syntax”. This is possible considering that literature does not come from vacuum. A literary text rooted in a certain society that holds socio-cultural and ideological tendency. It implies that the use of English literary text in EFL class offers the observation, interaction and experience of the linguistic expression is produced and used as well as the cultural factor is attached. In other words, the engagement of literary text to the purpose of experiencing language exposure for foreign language learners could bring the development of linguistic knowledge, the increase of students’ motivation to interact with a text, and thus ultimately increase their reading and speaking proficiency and, of course, the understanding of that native culture and most likely spur students own imaginative writing and the awareness of using English expressions. In this sense, a literary text provide learners with real world experiences, relationships between society and people where the target language is spoken, even if they are fictions; it is a language exposure. It is no wonder that Collie and Slater in their book entitled Literature in the Classroom; A Resource Book of Ideas and Activities (1990) strongly proposes four advantageous reasons for engaging literary text in EFL class namely valuable authentic material, cultural enrichment, language enrichment and personal involvement.
Literature is authentic material. It is true that literary text is not created for the primary purpose of meeting the need of foreign language learner. Many authentic samples of language used and conversed in real-life contexts are found in relevance to the proposition that language is a medium of expressing ideas in literature. Consequently, in an EFL classroom context, learners are exposed to actual native language samples of real life or real life-like settings. The literary situation and atmosphere reflecting that of original may assist the language learner to grasp the atmosphere within which the language is spoken. Here, literary text acts as a valuable complement for students’ linguistic knowledge in terms of the language proficiency. In simple words, literary texts in fact employs authentically language intended for native speakers, therefore the student copes with the text will become familiar with many different linguistic forms, communicative functions and meanings applied among native speakers.
In cultural enrichment perspective, students as language learners are encouraged to find literary text, such as novels, plays, short stories as an agent to facilitate the understanding of how communication takes place in that country. In spite of its imaginary world, the text presents a full and colorful setting in which character(s) from variety of social and regional backgrounds being described. Students as a language learners in their interaction with the text can discover the way the characters in such literary text see the world outside as reflected in their thoughts, feelings, customs, traditions, possessions; what they buy, believe in, fear, enjoy; how they speak and behave in different settings. This colorful-created setting can quickly help the students as foreign learners to feel for the codes and preoccupations that shape a real society of the language. Literary text, here, is perhaps best regarded as a complement to other materials used to develop the foreign learner’s understanding into the country whose language is being learned. The understanding opens an access to language exposure on learners.
A literary text brings language enrichment for the language learners since it provides learners with a wide range of individual lexical or syntactic items. Students as the learners become familiar with many features of the written language, reading a substantial and contextualized body of text. They learn about the syntax and discourse functions of sentences, the variety of possible structures, the different ways of connecting ideas, which develop and enrich their own writing skills or even speaking. Students also become more productive and adventurous when they begin to perceive the richness and diversity of the language they are trying to learn and begin to make use of some of that potential themselves. Thus, they improve their communicative and cultural competence in the authentic richness, naturalness of the authentic texts.
The final advantage of the inclusion of literary text in EFL class is related to the personal involvement the text fosters in the reader. As the student interacts with a literary text, he begins to inhabit the text. He is evoked into the situation and atmosphere of the text. Understanding the meanings of lexical items or phrases becomes less significant than pursuing the development of the story. At this point, he actually commences the interpretation activity which describes his language potential. The student becomes enthusiastic to find out what happens as events unfold via the climax; he feels close to certain characters and shares their emotional responses. This can have beneficial effects upon the whole language learning process in particular the increase of motivation to learn and contact with language. At this juncture, the prominence of the selection of a literary text in connection with the needs, expectations, and interests, language level of the students is evident. At the later stage, the student develops his personal language acquisition as the frequent exposure with the language occurred.
The existence of these advantages has emphasized the importance of engaging literary text for the purpose of learning English as a foreign language. A literary text assists students with an arena to express and explore his language potentials which then, lead them to acquire a native-like competence in English, express their ideas in good English, learn the features of modern English, how linguistic system is applied for communication and see how idiomatic expressions are used, speak precisely and clearly, and become productive, creative, critical and analytical learners. The richness of resources for the language learning is possible due to the notion that language of literature is a medium through which a writer conveys about reality to readers. This means that a literary text as a product of imaginative process involves four aspects in its presence in the language learning classroom that is the writer, the text itself, the reality it portrayed and the reader. Each aspect challenges the ability of the learners to explore, by keeping the attachment to the use of the language being learnt. Thus, the language exposure occurs and a literary text is pushed into background for language learning activity.
Hindrance and Approach
A literary text has evidently been realized to have great potential for language teaching. It provides a basis for interaction that will result in a development of students’ language skill. As literary texts contain multiple layers of meaning, they can promote classroom activities that call for exchange of feelings and opinions (Sivasubramian: 2006). Such activities trigger the response potentials in students. The students find the activities and context in which they engage with these activities so absorbing that they enjoy taking risks in their search for meaning which implies the exploration of their language skill and interpretive as well as analytical ability. The result is the students find themselves in language exposure atmosphere. However, the benefits of bringing literary text into EFL Classroom will not satisfy if it is implemented under the perspective prioritizing a literary text as tool for the language of language. Rather, it is a way into the text, a method and it has to be taken as a kind of personal help and enjoyment. It foreshadows that the road to bring literary text to EFL class is not simple work. There have been some identified hindrances that may block the successful use of a literary text into foreign language class activities (Hişmanoğlu : 2005 : 13). First, there are very few pedagogically-designed appropriate materials that can be used by language teachers in a language classroom. The use of ready-made text including simplified ones, detailed questions, all tend to favor the teacher, not the student. For too long materials have remained at the surface patterns of linguistic text and have not drawn learners towards an understanding of the layers of meaning which can be peeled off from utterances; learners have seen sentences only as illustrations of grammatical patterns and have not asked pragmatic and sociolinguistic questions of what communicative value they have in given settings. Second, there is a lack of preparation in the area of literature teaching in EFL programs. Because of training, teachers are led to believe that students are tabula rasa, and try to impose knowledge and power over them. This is a very serious mistake that ought to avoid. Third, there is the absence of clear-cut objectives defining the role of literature in EFL. Many instructors try to include literature in their classroom, but lack the background and training in that field. Carter & Long (1991: 27) say that “The teacher has to decide on the process which is most appropriate to making the text more accessible and the teacher will certainly not try to impose his or her own interpretation to the text on the learners as being ‘correct’. This practice would cause the failure of learning activities.
Considering the challenge to the engagement of literary text as illustrated by the previously discussed hindrances, it is worth to find an alternative for place literary text in the context of EFL class. Carter and Long (1991) put forward three models namely the cultural model, the language model and the personal growth model. Within a cultural model (Carter and Long 1991:2), teaching literature is to enable students to understand and appreciate cultures and ideologies different from their own in time and space and to come to perceive the tradition of thought, feeling, and artistic form within the heritage of the literature that such cultures endow. The main purpose of teaching literature within a language model is to put students in touch with some of the more subtle and varied creative uses of the language (Carter and Long 1991: 2). Within a personal growth model (Carter and Long 1991: 3), one of the main goals of teaching literature is to try to help students to achieve an engagement with the reading of literary texts. These propositions are advocated by Gillian Lazar (1993: 3) in his statement, ‘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.’ What is clear from these arguments is the idea of positioning students as foreign language learners in the first place during the teaching process. The common practice of language teaching which is mostly teacher-oriented has to be left behind. In the context of involving literary text into EFL class, students as readers of the text ought to be the main orientation. The approach of bringing the literary text should be focused on the students’ interest as language learners. Teachers still has important role to perform in the teaching and learning activities yet it is carried out in the light of encouraging students’ participation and language exposure. The teacher, by considering students’ language level, chooses the literary texts, plans the whole procedure of interaction and using them, directs students’ work and helps them while handling grammar elements and giving proper exercises. It is his duty to provide information about the writer’s attitude toward the work and about the conventions underlying the work if the teacher. At this circumstance, the teacher could go with allowing free discussion to explore and expose students to English. If the students are interested in what they are reading they want to participate in a discussion of the work. It means that the communication between the teacher and students is not one-way. The teacher’s function is not to fill learners by the knowledge of an omniscient teacher but as a guide and assistant for students. Thus, students indeed dominate the class activity.
Apropos with this student-oriented approach, theories of studying literary work such as the reception aesthetic theory and quite similarly the reader response theories are the closely relevant ones. The theories provide a meaningful way of discussing a text. They give more freedom to a reader in front of a text; he recreates the text he reads; a substantial variety of responses to a text can be included to interpretation of it, and so on. Although in the field of literature education, reception aesthetics and reader response may lead to subjective attitudes, the freedom the theories give to a reader cannot be disregarded (Selden, 1989). The theories focus on the role of reader in interpretation process of a text. A reader pragmatically interprets the lines within a text depending on the context of it. Since a literary work is identified as “open work”, readers are expected to behave as interpreters and recreators of open works. They are tasked to complete open areas in a text individually. The learner-centred is the basic notion of the theories in the practice of language teaching. Because student readers may be directed to response to texts autonomously, they may behave more creatively and get the chance of interacting with each other in education process by discussing their responses, which later put them to exposure to the learnt language.
Closing
A literary text has evidently been a part of learning English as a foreign language. Its birth from the society marks its attachment to the variety of linguistic and cultural knowledge which are necessary for foreign language learner who is in difficulty to experience a language exposure. Literary text provides students as foreign language learners with more opportunities to express ideas, thought, and emotion in appropriate English. Regarding its advantage in EFL class such as its authenticity, cultural enrichment, language enrichment and personal involvement, literary text serves to bridge the exploration and improvement of both language skills and areas. Realizing this advantage, it is no doubt for teachers of English as a foreign language to engage literary text into class activities with the purpose of driving students to more language exposure. Some hindrances possibly appear in its implementation, yet by putting forward the students as the main actor in the interaction with the text and combined it with relevant literary theory, the big contribution of literary text still lead students to language exposure in the attempt to acquire English as a foreign language.
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