Foreign
texts versus local texts: students’ attitudes towards the selection of literary
text in ESL classroom in secondary school at Sibu
Chapter
I
1.0 introduction
The teaching of
literature in English class has turn into one of the essential elements in
Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah (KBSM). It has been incorporated in the
syllabus of English language and should be learned by the students starting
from secondary one to secondary five since its inception in 2001. The learning
outcome of the literature component is put under the “language for aesthetic
use” as mentioned in the English language curriculum specifications (A Aziz,
M., Nasharudin, S., & Nadia, S.,2010). The reason with that is explained by
the ministry in the following syllabus specification:
“Language
for aesthetic purposes enables learners to enjoy literary texts at a level
suited to
their
language proficiency and develops in them the ability to express themselves
creatively”.
(KBSM
English language Curriculum Specifications, 2003)
Literature was originally
the key foundation of idea to teach a second language in classroom setting in
the age of Grammar Translation Method but not long after that, it was brought
down to the foundation. In reality with the arrival of teaching method such as
structuralism and audiolingual, the role of literature was tone down and rejected
to the edge (Collie & Slater, 1987, p.2). The situation is similar in the
period of Comunicative Language Teaching when the role of literature was
ignored and primary focus was given to the teaching techniques of using
dialogues and conversations which were seen as more useful and close to the authentic
situation (Mohammad Khatib, Saeed Rezaei & Ali Derakhshan, 2011). Maley (2001) indicates that this approach
toward literature resulted of lack of realistic research approving the
importance of literary input in language classroom setting. Maley (2001) describes
further that there are relevant research in the respective field but the
empirical research are conducted in a small scales only.
The success in language
learning is determined by many factors and one of it is the students’ attitudes
towards language learning itself. According to Candlin and Mercer (2001), the
success or failure of a language learner relates to their attitudes towards the
target language, the learning context and the speaker as well. Over the years,
many researches have been conducted to determine the role of learners’
attitudes in second language learning, encouraged by the notion that negative
attitudes in learners can be manipulated. There are some identified factors
that can reduce negative attitudes in learners such as better teaching
strategies, suitable classroom settings and social environment as well (Siti
Norliana Ghazali, Roszainora Setia, Chittra Muthusamy, 2009).
1.7 Statement of problem
Literature in English and Malay has been
incorporated in the recent curriculum as elective subjects as well as part of
the English and Malay language syllabus. In the SPM and STPM level, literature
is also offered as an independent elective subject. There are varieties of
texts from new literary traditions in English and they have become more evident
in the ESL syllabus, the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) Literature in English
Elective Syllabus, and the Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM) Literature in
English Elective syllabus. A roundtable discussion was held on the role of
literature in the Malaysian English language classroom on November 2012. From
the discussion, it was reported that:
“Literature
in English in Malaysian schools, once the main core of the English language
curriculum in the 1970s, has shifted from being solely concerned with canonical
English literary works to the new role of allowing students to not only gain
language proficiency but also to avail them with opportunities to engage with a
wide range of issues, cultural settings and themes. The prospects for effective
language and literature learning seem promising for Malaysian students with the
new scenario but some see the incorporation of literature as a challenge and
struggle for students with low proficiency in English. The role of literature
in the Malaysian English language curriculum is thus an on-going debate among
all stakeholders”
(A Report on the
Roundtable discussion “The Role of Literature in The Malaysian English Language
Classroom”, 2012)
To use literature text
in ESL classroom, teacher has to consider several factors such as the
proficiency level of the language learners, how language is used in the
literary text, and most importantly the culture presented in the literary
texts. With variety of literary texts produced from different cultures around
the world, cultural unfamiliarity may occur in learners thus it creates a
problem in the process of learning the language. With that being said, ways
have to be found to select the best literary texts suitable for each learner in
a language classroom to enhance the potential of language learning using
literary texts (Zailin Shah,2004)
A study which was
conducted in Perak to report on a selection of literary texts needed for
Malaysian secondary schools have come out with the following result:
“The
students think that the choice of themes should differ across gender and class
levels (Form 2 – Form 5). They feel females like love themes much more than
males and this applies for all Form Two to Form Five students, both enjoy
mystery and adventurous texts. Texts should be contextual and culturally bound.
More local texts should be used. Texts should be happy ones and not morbid.
Texts should be suitable for teenagers so that they can relate easily for
example themes related to teenagers’ issues. The teachers believe that literary
texts used in Malaysian secondary schools are challenging and difficult in
terms of the students’ level. Foreign texts used are difficult and should be used
at a later stage. Texts should be selected based on Malaysian and Asian
context. Foreign texts selected must be easy to be comprehended and enjoyed by
Malaysian students”
(Nor Hashimah Isa, Che Ton Mahmud, 2012)
The selection of
literary text plays a vital role in ESL classroom. Hence, this research
attempts to study the attitudes of students towards the selection of literary
texts by their teachers in ESL classroom.
1.3
Research Objectives
The objectives of this
study are:
1.3.1 To investigate
the students’ attitudes towards the two selections of literature text
1.3.1.1
Foreign literature text
1.3.1.2
Local literature text
1.3.2 To identify the
strengths and weaknesses of the two types of texts in ESL classroom
1.3.3 To identify
significance difference in terms of level of language used in the two types of
texts
1.4
Research Questions
1.4.1 What are
students’ attitudes towards the two selection of literary text in ESL
classroom?
1.4.2 What are the
strengths and weaknesses of the two types of identified literary texts?
1.4.3 Is there any
significance difference in terms of level of language used in both identified
texts?
1.5
Operational Definition
1.5.1 Definition of
Literature
According to Eagleton
(2006), he defines literature as imaginative writing in the sense of fiction
that is writing is not literally true. He clarifies further that literature a
different set of language contrasting with the ordinary set of language that we
usually use in our daily lives. He considers that literature has developed into
an entire alternate ideology and imagination itself. According to him, the role
of literature is to change a particular group of people in the sense of values
and energy that the arts represent. Furthermore, Wellek & Warren (1977)
quote that the term literature itself would be best describe if one limit the
art of it to only imaginative literature. According to them, in order to solve
the question, the usage of literature in language should be distinguished. In
the context of Malaysian education, literature is introduced in schools to
enrich the students understanding of English language as well as for enjoyment
purpose. This means that, the learner should be able to distinguish the role of
literature in education as it is used to enhance their literacy and proficiency
in English as well as it is also for fun reading. To create an equilibrium
situation between the two is no easy task but it can be done with the right
ways (Kow Yip Cheng, 2008).
1.5.2 Literature in ESL
It is more suitable to
use literature as a resource rather than a main focus of study as in ESL
classroom. The role of literature in ESL context is primarily to develop a
better attention and participation among the learners and also greater outcome
when doing the activities and exercises in classroom setting. Thus, it depends
on the language proficiency of the learners, thorough literary works, meanings
and words translation and easy to understand version of the difficult classic
texts should be taken into consideration for this purpose (AVAILA, L. 1988).
1.5.3 English as Second
language (ESL)
A condition when
English is not the mother tongue of the speakers but is regarded as essential
and commonly used exclusively during business transactions or communicating
with others who have different mother tongues (AVAILA, L. 1988)
1.5.4 Students’
attitudes
In order to be able to
assess the students’ attitudes, let us analyse the term attitude itself. There
are many descriptions associated with the term. Among them are by Triandis
(1971). He agrees that it is a style of uniformity toward an object. According
to Brown (2001: 61), attitude is categorized by a great amount of emotional
involvement identified as feelings, self and relationships in a particular
community. Eveyik (1999: 21) explains in her work whereby she comes to an
agreement with majority of the scholars about the meaning of ‘attitude’ that it
is defined as the state of readiness to reply instantly to a circumstance and the
tendency to act in a constant style toward a particular object.
1.6
Limitation
This research will be
conducted on one specific government secondary school at Sibu Sarawak and does
not cover the whole state or the whole Malaysia. There are only two classes
selected for the study and it only represent a minority of the students who
practically use literary text in ESL classroom at the school.
1.7
Significance of the study
After the study has
been conducted it is hoped that the researcher as well as the teacher or any
responsible party are able to benefit from it in terms of the most appropriate
text to be used in the language classroom that is best suited the language
proficiency of the students. Besides that, the relevant parties also would be
able to figure out the advantages and disadvantages of the selected text with
regards to the students’ feedback on them.
Chapter
II
Literature review
2.1 The incorporation of literature in
Malaysian education system
To
prove a that literature plays an important role in studying a language, it is
necessary to look at the improvement of literature teaching in ESL classroom
and the activities planned by the relevant body which is the ministry of
education. Until recently, literature in English at the secondary level is not
offered as a main subject but only an elective one which is studied for
examination purposes. Few studies have been conducted in the past but they were
only focuses only urban elite schools where the rural areas are kept at bay but
nonetheless they still study the same materials as their counterparts from the
urban schools (Rosli, 1995). in order to provide more English exposure to
students, the Ministry initiated a programme called Language Reading Programme
(ELRP) in the 1980’s. soon after, the ministry moved a step forward by
initiated another similar programme with different objectives called Class
Reader Programme (CRP) which was introduced to all government schools in
Malaysia during the 1990’s. One of the main objectives of the programme is to
instill literature elements in a language classroom. As of recently, Malaysian
secondary schools are introduced with content-based language teaching that
started in the year 2000 (Muthusamy, C., Marimuthu, R., Michael, A. S., Ghazali,
S. N. B., & Veeravagu, J. 2010). With the programme being introduced, the
class time is changed by adding 20% of overall class time in a week only to
teach the literature component in ESL classroom. At the beginning of its
introduction into the education system, only the upper secondary classes are
involved in the programme mainly secondary 4 & 5 but later afterwards the
ministry has finally made a decision to include all the secondary level
starting from form 1 until 5. At present time, the upper primary level that are
standard 4 and 5 are also involved in learning English through literature. Due
to the fact that the English proficiency level among Malaysian students
declining, the ministry finally realize that the teaching of English literature
could offer help to upgrade their English level as well as fostering passion
towards reading and encouraging creative writing among the students (Muthusamy
et al, 2010). According to Hariati Azizan (2007), the ministry is on the edge
of refurbishing its syllabus on literature to create a more friendly outlook by
incorporating elements of ICT in literature because of the nature of teens
nowadays that are more technology savvy so that it will catch their interest
towards learning the English literature. This is in line with the introduction
of Malaysian English Language Teaching Association (MELTA) to encourage
students to consider taking Literature in English at the SPM level.
2.2 Theoretical conception
The
goals of the Integrated Curriculum for Secondary Schools in Malaysia are to
further develop the potential of the individual in a whole, stable and united
manner covering the intelligent, spiritual, emotion and physical features in
order to produce a balanced and harmonious person with high social standards as
stated in the Literature syllabus KBSM.
The
Literature in English programme in the Integrated Curriculum for Secondary
Schools (KBSM) is offered as an elective subject for study at the upper
secondary school level. Literature in English refers to literary works in English
including translated works. The literary works offered for study in the programme
are drawn from short story, novel, poetry and drama. The study of literature
also allows students to engage with relationships, ideas, places, times and
events (lokman hakim, 2008). This will help them to understand themselves
better, of the society they live in and of the world as a whole. The syllabus
in the programme is planned in terms of Aims, Objectives, Learning Outcomes and
Educational Emphases. The Aims outline the general goals of the programme while
the Objectives define what students should achieve by the end of the programme.
According to Lokman Hakim (2008), The Learning Outcomes define the skills,
attitudes and knowledge that students will acquire through the study of
selected texts. The Contents provide further specifications of Learning
Outcomes and constitutes basic guidelines which teachers need to take note
while preparing their lessons. In addition, current developments in education
are included in the Educational Emphases that include Learning How to Learn
Skills, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Skills, Thinking
Skills, Multiple Intelligences and Values and Citizenship. The Literature in
English programme is based upon the study of some prescribed works. The
selected works convey the values as well as the interests of the students.
Literature in the classroom should be approached through a range of strategies
which promote learner involvement in response to a range of texts. Approaches
used for teaching should be student-centred. Student feedback should be
encouraged through activities such as performing drama, reciting poem, writing
skits, stories and poems.
The
following is the outline of current developments in education that will help learners
to prepare themselves for the real world situation. All these skills will
contribute towards the building of a modern, creative and progressive society.
This is enhanced through the four genres used in the literature syllabus.
2.3 Related Literature and Research on
the selection of literary text
According
to Rosenkjar (2007), some learners find literature very difficult because of
the choice of literary texts. If challenging authors are chosen, students will
not be able to enjoy reading their works. The students will rely on word-for-word
translation, which is not the way to advance language skills or literary
appreciation in students. The students tend to translate each word to grasp the
meaning of the literary text rather than understanding the whole picture of it.
In general, second language learners are introduced with the text from foreign
cultures that are not familiar to them. According to Lundahl (1998) as cited in
Emine (2006), the culture in a text can have implication about our ability of
understanding it. Hence, literature containing great cultural distances between
the content and its reader, risk lead to a difficulty in understanding it. It
is vital that the literature text chosen is associated to the pupils’ lives in
one way or another. As suggested by the reader-response theory, the reader
interprets the texts in the same way as one makes sense of personal matters. If
learners discover a literary text linked to their lives and experiences in some
way, then they are likely to find the literature attractive and are able to
comprehend the text better.
A
study has been conducted by Malaysian researchers on the topic; ESL Students’
Attitude towards Texts and Teaching Methods Used on secondary school pupils in
2009. They found out that when it comes to measure the students’ attitudes and
text selection, only the students who execute higher order thinking are able to
comprehend literary text outside of their culture, as cited by Siti Norliana,
Roszainora Setia, Muthusamy & Kamaruzaman Jusoff (2009);
“only the good students were able
to appreciate the importance of cultural elements in literary texts while
others face more basic problems like understanding the literal meaning of the
texts. This was shown by one student who referred to Red Indians when talking
about a text set in Africa. More than half of the students admitted that they
usually could not finish reading the text on time in Literature Classes”
Therefore,
literary texts have to be chosen in such a way that they would capture the
interest of the reader specifically the learner. The texts should guide the
students to discover language features presented in it and most importantly,
the selected text should be able to serve as a foundation for creative
post-reading activities that involves communication aspect.
In
the year 2000, the relevant ministry of education initiated on a policy change
in the education system by introducing the literature component in English
classes. It was the move that out of five English periods in a week, one is
dedicated to teach the literature component. In line with the policy change,
various genres across different cultures were introduced to secondary one until
five with the selected texts written by foreign and local authors. The primary
objectives of learning this literary texts is to develop the students’ English
language proficiency as well as contributing to individual development and
building a better character in them at the same time exposing the students to
various cultures in the world (Ganakumaran 2003)
Ganakumaran
(2003) conducted a study on the incorporation of the literature component in
schools and found out there are problems mainly concern on text selections
brought into ESL classroom. He further suggests that every text selected must
be readable and easily accessible to the learners. It is also significant to
keep a constancy in the themes of the language proficiency and the theme of the
literature component (Ganakumaran, Shahizah & Koo, 2003). He also states
that cultural perspective is another important aspect in readability whereby
the texts are selected from both local and foreign authors. For example, the
poem Life’s Brief Candle by Shakespeare or the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by
R.L. Stevenson being used in the lower secondary syllabus in terms of
geographic and history is still not familiar to local pupils. Even certain
cultural facts in some of the texts is obsolete in it birthplace (Ganakumaran,
Shahizah & Koo 2003).
According
to Vethamani, M.E (2004), the literature elements brought into the education
system is more biased towards American and British concept. In fact, the
British and American literature mainstream definitely has outstanding and
recognize quality among the rest but the relevant authority should also
acknowledge the emerging of local literary works in English or the translated
version from Malay to be considered in for extensive use in schools.
A
study was conducted by Norton (1995) in the teaching of literature in Swedish
Upper Secondary schools reveals that the students discover reading in English
as a foreign language is tougher than reading in their own mother tongue, they
are more towards reading the texts that are amusing, thrilling and not too
demanding. Norton further clarifies the difficulties face by teachers when
teaching literary texts, mainly in a foreign language or ESL context is the
selection of text brought into the classroom. The texts should be able to
provide a pleasant reading by being on the suitable level for pupils that is in
terms of the linguistic or vocabulary-wise level, the intellectually or
content- wise level (Norton 1995).
Chapter III
Research Design and Methodology
3.1 Introduction
The
purpose of this research is to investigate the students’ attitudes towards the
selection of literary text. There are two selection of literary text being
focus in this study namely foreign literary text and local literary text. The
local literary text selected for the study is “the Curse” by Lee Su Ann and the
foreign literary text selected is “catch us if you can” by Frank Brennan. This
chapter describes the research design, instrumentation and data collection.
This research is focus only on quantitative research where only numerical data
is collected and analysed.
3.2 Research Approach
Quantitative
approach was selected for this study because it will compare between
alternative texts used in ESL classroom. Quantitative research is defined as Explaining
phenomena by collecting numerical data that are analysed using mathematically
based methods particularly in statistics (Aliaga and Gunderson, 2000).
The
study will not be done in qualitative approach because it is not deductive. It
is mainly generalizable and in numbers. The data of this study will be in
numerical as likert scale will be used to analysed the students attitudes
towards the selection of literary text in their classroom.
3.3 Research Design
The
study attempts to determine the consequences of differences that already
existed between two groups of individuals involved in the research whereby both
groups are already assigned with different literary texts. The difference
between the groups has already occurred because both the effects and the
alleged causes have been happening and still ongoing. Thus, the effects and
causes are studied in retrospect. With that being said, Causal-Comparative
Design is the most appropriate to be used in this research. The design is
selected to answer the three research questions mentioned in chapter I.
A
cross-sectional survey will be conducted to get the information from form 5
students who experienced the teaching of literature in their ESL classroom.
3.4 Sampling and Population
The
study is conducted to investigate the secondary students’ attitudes towards the
selection of literary text by their teachers in ESL classroom. Therefore, the
target population is Form 5 students from various secondary schools in Sibu urban
area. The form 5 classes selected for the study is middle-range students in
academic performance. To select the two appropriate schools for the research,
the researcher will use the purposive sampling method. The researcher will use
his personal judgment to select the two most appropriate schools. The schools
are classified into school A whereby the form 5 students use one foreign
literary text and school B whereby the form 5 students use one local literary
text.
To
identify the sample for the study, a random purposive sampling will be carried
out in respective school to select participants to answer the questionnaire. Later
to identify the total number of sample size, the researcher will use Krejcei
& Morgan (1970) table for determining the sample size from a given
population of the middle-range academic performer students from both schools.
3.5 Instrumentation
A questionnaire will be developed for the
purpose of collecting data from the respondents. The items in the questionnaire
will be built and guided by the research questions (I) what are students’
attitudes towards the two selection of literary text in ESL classroom? (II)
What are the strengths and
weaknesses of the two types of identified literary texts? (III) Is there any significance
difference in terms of level of language used in both identified texts? The nature of the
questionnaire is based on a fixed format self-report measure whereby the
answers by the respondents are in the form of five-point Likert scale. The
first section generally asking the respondents demographic profile such as
gender, race and their class level. The second section will attempt to collect
their feedback on learning literature in classroom, the tendency to read literary
text during free time or for leisure purpose, their appreciation of literary
texts and attitudes towards the selection of literary text by their teachers.
The third section seeks their views on the strengths and weaknesses of the
literary text they use in the classroom. The last section collects information
on the type or kind of literature texts that they prefer the most based on
gender and language proficiency level.
3.6 Data collection procedure
In
order to gather data and conduct a research in the respective schools,
permission will be obtained from “Pejabat Pelajaran Daerah Sibu”. The relevant
office will provide a permission letter to allow the study to be carried out in
the schools. Once the letter is given, the researcher proceeds to visit the
selected schools by approaching the principal to gain information on the best
classes for the study which is middle-range performers in academic. After the
classes are identified, the researcher calculates the number of population of
both classes from both schools to determine the appropriate number of sample
size. The questionnaire will be distributed to the respondents once the sample
size has been identified.
3.7 Data analysis
The
study requires quantitative data analyses. All the data derived from the questionnaire
will be analysed and tabulated using Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences (SPSS). The descriptive statistic feature in SPSS will be used as the
main tool to analyze each item in the questionnaire.
3.8 Reliability and Validity
Analysis
Measures
that are used to assess the validity of data collection tools are adapted from from
Knapp (1998). To analyse the validity of content, the researcher asks a few
experts to conduct a check on the tool covers all areas. Opinion and
suggestions from the expert will be taken into consideration to make changes whenever
necessary.
Apart
from that, Cronbach Alpha will also be used to test the reliability of every
instrument in the study
