CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study

In many English language learning and teaching contexts the absence of
literary texts, such as graded readers, short stories and poems, still seems to be the
norm. Where textbooks are used, and depending on the title adopted, sometimes
extracts of a novel or a short poem may timidly make their way among a majority
of non-fictional texts, such as extracts of newspaper articles, samples of travel
brochures, or content from webpages. Where teachers themselves select and/or
design their materials, it is up to individuals to decide whether literature will be
somehow included in the course syllabus and/or particular lesson plans. If so,
teachers then have to decide on which texts to include, for what purposes to use
them, and what activities will be done to explore the texts and promote language
development. Not easy tasks, by all means. The difficulties of selecting material
alone may be significant enough to put teachers off the enterprise of bringing
literature to the language classroom altogether.

This paper looks briefly at the some more recent historical positions
regarding the use of literature in ELT, and then discusses how the It concludes
proposing some criteria for text selection and some suggestions on how to use
these texts in conjunction with other textual forms and media.

1.2 Formulation of the Problem

Based on the background of study that has been explained above, the
writer idintifies the formulation of the problems that are devided into three points,
such as:
1) What are the criterias for selecting learning material?
2) What are the approaches to materials evaluation?
3) How to evaluate learning material?
4) What are three approaches to using literature with the language learner?
5) What are the differences among the three approaches?
6) What is the role of metalanguage?

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1.3 Objective of the Problem
Regarding to the fomluation of the problem that has been stated before, the
writer determine the objective of the study. The objectives are devided into three
points, those are:
1) To know the criterias for selecting learning material.
2) To know the approaches to materials evaluation.
3) To know how to evaluate learning material.
4) To know three approaches to using literature with the language learner.
5) To know the differences among the three approaches.
6) To know the role of metalanguage.

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 CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION

2.1 Approaches to Using Literature with English Learner

An approach is a way of looking at teaching and learning. Underlying any
language teaching approach is a theoretical view of what language is, and of how
it can be learnt. An approach gives rise to methods, the way of teaching
something, which use classroom activities or techniques to help learners learn.
A language-based approach to using literature includes techniques and
procedures which are concerned more directly with the study of the literary text
itself. The aim here is to provide the students with the tools they need to interpret
a text and to make competent critical judgments of it. By applying this approach,
teachers give excellent opportunity for classroom discussion and bridging the gap
between language study and the development of more literary-based skills.
1. A language-based approach
According to Lazar (2009: 23), studying the language of the literary text
will help to integrate the language and literature syllabuses more closely. Detailed
analysis of the language of the literary text will help students to make meaningful
interpretations or informed evaluations of it. At the same time, students will
increase their general awareness and understanding of English. Students are
encouraged to draw on their knowledge of familiar grammatical, lexical or
discoursal categories to make aesthetic judgments of the text. Lazar also explains
some activities based on the level with different activities as well.
2. Literature as content
Lazar (2009: 24) stated that this approach 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 course
content, particularly through reading set texts and literary criticism relating to

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them. The mother tongue of the students may be used to discuss the texts, or
students may be asked to translate texts from one language into the other.
3. Literature for personal enrichment
Lazar (2009: 24) mentioned that literature is a useful tool for encouraging
students to draw on 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. Excellent stimulus for groupwork. In
this approach, teachers have to make text more relevant to students experience. It
is best to select materials which are in line with the major interests of the students.
Duff and Maley (2007) stress that teachers can cope with many of the
challenges that literary texts present, if they ask a series of questions to assess the
suitability of texts for any particular group of learners:
Is the subject matter likely to interest this group?
Is the language level appropriate?
Is it the right length for the time available?
Does it require much cultural or literary background knowledge?
Is it culturally offensive in any way?
Can it be easily exploited for language learning purposes?

2.2 The role of Metalanguage

Metalanguage is literary terminology. It is very useful in understanding
literary text. Below is a list of some of the terms which are often used when
discussing literature. In fact, some of them are terms for figures of speech which
are equally common in everyday language. Each term is accompanied by a
definition. Below the definitions are list of examples:

METAPHOR: a comparison made between things which are unlike each

other by describing one as if it were the other.
SIMILE: an explicit comparison made between two unlike things which
is usually indicated by using the words like or as.

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PERSONIFICATION: a kind of metaphor in which abstract or inanimate objects
are described as if they were alive and animate.
PARADOX: a statement which appears to be contradictory or absurd, but may be
true.
OXYMORON: a combination of neighboring words which seem apparently
contradictory or incongruous.
METONYMY: a figure of speech in which the name of a thing is substituted for
another thing with which it is usually associated.
SYNECDOCHE: the whole of something is used to mean the part of it, or part of
it is used to mean the whole.
APOSTROPHE: the direct addressing of an abstract quality, object or absent
person.
ALLITERATION: the repetition of the initial consonant sounds in two or more
consecutive words.
ASSONANCE: the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds usually in the
middle of words.

2.3 Selecting Learning Material

There are many aspects which must be considered when selecting
authentic texts. First of all, teachers should be aware of who their students are and
also of many factors that are connected with the text.
Age of students, their hobbies, and cultural and ethnic background should
be always taken into consideration as well as students intellectual maturity, their
emotional understanding, linguistic proficiency and literature background and
previous experience. Teachers do not necessarily need to take all of the above
mentioned into account. Most teachers find that when selecting texts for their
learners they generally proceed on an intuitive basis. With a good knowledge of,
and rapport with, a group of learners this usually works well (Lazar, 1993: 52).
Despite that it might be useful to look at the scales and select a particular text
according to them.

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 One of the unfortunate aspects of teaching a secondary school class is, that
the authentic text will not be always suitable for every single student, but only for
most of them. When considering students cultural background, their linguistic
proficiency and literary background, the number of students who could be
possible omitted because the text is out of their range decreases greatly.

2.3.1 Cultural Background

For a long time it was thought that reading a literary text is
comprehensible for a learner if such factors as vocabulary and grammar are not
beyond his knowledge (Huang, 2009: 138). However, these components of
language are not the only factors that make the text comprehensible. Learners of
all ages were misled into believing, that their reading can be effective only when
they master all of the grammatical rules and enlarge their vocabulary. It has been a
matter of researchers during the past thirty years to show the doubts about
grammar and vocabulary being the only essential factors and the background
knowledge was included between these factors (Huang, 2009). Students cultural
background can be a great advantage when reading an authentic literary text, and
when choosing, teachers should consider how far their background can help them
to understand this specific text. Students cultural background goes hand in hand
with how much of a background do teachers need to provide before their students
start to read. It does not necessarily need to be a text which shows many
similarities with the life of students. It is also true that texts which may appear to
be very remote in time and place from the world today may still have appeal for
students in different countries around the world (Lazar, 1993: 52). Students
might find parallels in the texts and in an ideal literature teachers world, they
should also be curious about the society in which people, whose language they are
trying to master, are living as literature reveals key insights about that
society(Lazar, 1993: 53).

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2.3.2 Students Linguistic Proficiency
Spoken English differs greatly from the written one, especially the one
used in literary texts, which are usually full of metaphors, idioms, archaisms and
structures, that students might not be familiar with. Into consideration should be
taken all the texts that are written in any kind of a dialect or show a large number
of slang words. Teachers must then ask are students sufficiently familiar with the
usual norms of language use to recognise when these are subverted? (Lazar,
1993: 53). Students could get easily discouraged when they come across a text
which is too difficult for them. It might be helpful to provide them with texts
which were later transformed into films and therefore there is a chance that
students will be familiar with the content. The essential question a teacher needs
to respond to is, whether the text is helpful to her students English in any way.

2.3.3 Literary Background

Here the teacher must consider the learner's literary competence which is
as important as linguistic competence (Lazar, 2000). This means that when
choosing a literary text one has not to check whether the text is linguistically
accessible or not, but he has also to know whether learners will be able to interact
with the text and its literary devices. It is assumed that learners who have already
dealt with literature even in other languages will display some literary competence
when they deal with literary texts in any language, because this experience will
help them develop certain literary competence. Learners who have a very high
linguistic competence, on other hand, may stand unable to interact with and
interpret literary texts if they are not familiar with literature, that is they have no
literary competence. Lazar (ibid: 54) affirms that Students who have little literary
knowledge, but are linguistically proficient, may find themselves understanding
each individual word on the page without being able to make sense of the literary
meanings behind the texts.
Literary competence is then that ability which allows readers to treat
literary text relying on certain literary conventions and principles. This will allow

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them lift the words of a poem or a fiction passage then convert them into literary
meanings.

Literary competence can be reinforced through introducing into literature

course activities dealing with the language of literature such as figurative and
rhetoric language, literary terms, literary movements, and literary forms or genres
(Martinez, 1991). For a good assimilation of these literary elements, teachers
should not rely on definitions only; they have to opt for other more practical
activities such as matching the definition of a metaphor with a metaphor extracted
from a text or a poem. On the whole, choosing a literary text will depend on the
literary readiness of the learners. If the learners are literary ready, i.e., equipped
with the necessary literary knowledge, they will interact with and respond to the
text aesthetically and even critically and not only linguistically.

2.3.4 Other Factors for Selecting Texts

Besides the three main criterias of selecting learning material in literature
class that has been expained in the previous point, Lazar (1993: 54) also proposed
other factors that has to be considered while selecting learning material. The
factor includes four points:

1. Availability of Text
a) Which kind of text and book are available from which you can choose?
b) How easily can you make these texts available to your students?
2. Length of Text
a) Do you have enough time available to work on the text in class?
b) How much time do students have to work on the text at home?
c) Could you use only past of a text, or an abridged version of it? If so, how
much background information will you need to give students to make the
text intelligible?
3. Expliotability
a) What kind of tasks or activities can you device to exploit the text?
b) Are there resources available to help you exploit the text, for example a
film or a particular novel the students are studying, recording of a play of
poem, library materials giving information about the life of an author, etc.?
4. Fit With Syllabus

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 a) How do the texts link with the rest of the syllabus? Thematically? In term
of vocabulary, grammar and discourse?
b) Can you devise tasks and activities for exploiting the text with the link
with the methodolgy you have used elsewhere in the syllabus? These often
helps to put students at their ease. For example, if your students are used to
using Multiple Choice or True/False questions when doing reading
comprehension, then you could use similar tasks when exploiting literary
text.

2.4 Evaluating Learning Materials

2.4.1 Approaches to Materials Evaluation
In order to select the most appropriate evaluation method it is necessary
to consider existing approaches. In this section the writer will define
materials evaluation before reviewing some relevant theoretical and empirical
studies from the literature.
1. Defining materials evaluation
Materials evaluation has been defined by Tomlinson (2003: 15) as a
procedure that involves measuring the value (or potential value) of a set of
learning materials. An evaluation focuses largely on the needs of the users
of the materials and makes subjective judgements about their effects
(Tomlinson, 2003). An evaluation might include questions such as Do the
reading texts sufficiently engage learners?, which elicit responses containing a
necessarily subjective value judgement.
Evaluations can be carried out pre-use, in-use or post-use. The
main aim of evaluating materials pre-use, according to Rubdy (2003: 42),
is to measure the potential of what teachers and learners can do with them in
the classroom. In-use and post-use evaluations are important in establishing
how successful learning materials are (McDonough & Shaw, 2003: 71).
2. Materials evaluation: in theory
With the widespread adoption of commercially produced textbooks as
core teaching materials a greater focus began to be placed on materials
evaluation in the early 1980s. Initially, the role of textbooks within English

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language teaching was explored (e.g. in Swales, 1980; Allwright, 1981; and
ONeill, 1982). The need for a more systematic approach to materials
evaluation emerged during this time as it became apparent that any set of
commercially produced teaching materials would be unlikely to be completely
suitable for a particular group of learners (McGrath, 2002; McDonough
& Shaw, 2003). A number of theoretical evaluative frameworks have since
been published (e.g. in Williams, 1983; Breen & Candlin, 1987; Sheldon, 1988;
McDonough & Shaw, 2003; Cunningsworth, 1995; and McGrath, 2002). These
have mostly been checklist-based, usually in the form of questions to be
answered to determine the extent to which the materials fulfil a set of criteria.
While there is a scarcity of evaluation schemes specifically designed for
young learner materials, Halliwell (1992) provides a checklist for evaluating
and comparing young learner coursebooks.
The advantages and disadvantages of checklists have been pointed out
by several writers. Not only can checklists be systematic and comprehensive,
they are also cost and time effective, and the results are easy to understand,
replicate and compare (McGrath, 2002: 2627). On the other hand, pre-existing
checklists can become dated and the criteria used may not be transparent or
based on assumptions shared by everyone (McGrath, 2002). Sheldon (1988:
242) has also written how considerable modification of any set of culturally
restricted criteria is necessary to make them applicable to most local contexts.
3. Materials evaluation: in practice
A number of practical studies have utilised different approaches
to materials evaluation. Alamri (2008) employed a survey questionnaire
of teachers and administrators to evaluate the English textbook used with a
group of young Saudi learners. Both Murdoch (2000) and Atkins (2001)
used McDonough and Shaws (2003) coursebook evaluation model to
evaluate textbooks used in Korean and Japanese secondary school contexts
respectively. Litz (2005) employed student and teacher evaluation survey
questionnaires to evaluate a coursebook used in a Korean university. In all
cases, a checklist-based system was used, with some modification required to

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 make the evaluation more suitable for each researchers aims and context.

2.4.2 Evaluating Learning Material

When teachers select literary materials according to the criteria of literary
text choice, they have to evaluate and classify these materials according to types
of students, and the relevance of these materials, depending on the general needs
and objectives of the course. This task can be done by the teachers of the same
subject and revised continually because it changes according to learners and their
readiness. The teacher, also, should not focus on the text itself as an end, but on
the major objectives of dealing with a certain text and not with another (Carrel et
al, 1983).
So the teacher's concern should be related to how to find a text that will
foster his students' linguistic and literary background with relevance to the
syllabus. Here the teacher may prepare evaluation sheets for the materials in hand
for each class. He may also collect materials with students and then classify them.
This evaluation will help learners also in using materials in a given class-level,
i.e., evaluation sheets will guide learners to read a text, if not this year, next year,
and if not next year, the following one and so on. This depends on their levels and
relevance of the work to the official syllabus (Carrel et al, ibid). Lazar (op. cit)
distinguishes two kinds of evaluation sheets, the Quick evaluation and detailed
evaluation.

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 CHAPTER III
CONLUSION

3.1 Conclusion of Approaches to Using Literature with English Learner

The overall aim of language-based approach to using literature is to let the
students derive the benefits of communicative and other activities for language
improvement within the context of suitable works of literature. Those activities
make language learners explore the literature, so they can improve their
knowledge and proficiency in English. In the other hand, literature as content is
only successful with learners who have a specialist interest in the study of
literature. But, there are important elements that can be applied to the teaching of
literature in the language class. While, literature for personal enrichment
encourage students to respond personally to a text. So, in this approach, the
learners are willing to give their personal opinions in the classroom.
In conclusion, by understanding those three approaches, teachers are willing to
apply them in the classroom. They can pinpointing possible approaches to help
them in selecting and designing materials for classroom use.

3.2 Conclusion of Selecting and Evaluating Learning Material

It is revealed from the findings stated throughout this paper that teachers
of foreign languages particularly of literature are recommended to distinguish
among programs and their contents since programs are not similar but
complementary in content. Also, objectives for learning literature and themes or
topics must be identified before involving learners in reading. Objectives stated in
the official syllabus should be read, though they may be slightly modified
according to the circumstances of the course and to the teachers own
qualifications, to the local student sand department needs; this can be discussed in
continual or yearly local, as well as national meetings and seminars. Moreover,
load or intensity of the course should be highly considered. This implies inquiring
about the number of sessions and hours devoted to the course and to the session. If
the course is followed by TD session, the teacher should reserve a session for

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handling literary text, and may use more extensive texts. Also the students
interest and hobbies should be revealed by administering regular questionnaires or
open panels because they may increase motivation and may create permanent love
for reading even in life after school or university. More than this, learners cultural
and ethnic background or even their nationality should be manipulated. This will
help learners to tolerate themes and topics discussed or presented by a foreign.
Furthermore, the students previous experience of literary text reading should be
known, in advance because it may help in reinforcing the foreign literature if
exploited suitably by the teacher. All these elements together with high knowledge
of the characteristics of literary text will help literature teachers to select and
classify literary materials appropriately.

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 REFERENCE

Carter, R., Long, M. N. (1991). Teaching Literature. New York, NY: Longman
Publishing.
Duff, A & Maley, A. (2007). Literature (Resource Books for Teachers), Oxford
University Press.
Halliwell, S. (1992). Teaching English in the Primary Classroom. Harlow:
Longman.
Huang, Q. (2009). Background Knowledge and Reading Teaching. Asian Social
Lazar, G., (1993). Literature and Language Teaching. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Litz, D. (2005) Textbook evaluation and ELT management: a South Korean
case study [online]. Asian EFL Journal Thesis Section. www.asian-efl-
journal.com/Litz_thesis.pdf.
Maley, A. (2001). Literature in the language classroom' in The Cambridge Guide
to Teaching ESOL, Cambridge University Press.
McDonough, J. and Shaw, C. (2003). Materials and Methods in ELT.
Oxford: Blackwell.
McGrath, I. (2002). Materials Evaluation and Design for Languag Teaching.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Rubdy, R. (2003) Selection of materials. In Tomlinson, B. (ed.) Developing
Science, vol. 5, 138-142. Retrieved from www.ccsenet.org/journal.html
Tomlinson, B. (1998). Materials Development in Language Teaching.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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