This dissertation examines the importance of literature in English language teaching. The questions I always ask myself when it comes to teaching the English language to my students are: “Are they really motivated to learn the language? Finally, the original lessons organized for the intervention are presented, while also providing the rationale behind using the tasks for students to complete.
The fourth chapter is a presentation of the results of the motivation questionnaire and the language test that the students had to take before and after the teaching literature intervention. Possible implications for future classroom use of literature are presented, concluding with limitations of the study.
Motivation
- Defining Motivation
- The Importance of Motivation in L2
- Theories of Motivation
- Expectancy-Value Theories
- Goal Theories
- Self-determination Theory
- The Ideal-Self
- Enhancing Motivation in Classroom
- Teachers’ Role
Teachers of a foreign language can assure that the level of motivation of a student is of great importance in learning and acquiring a foreign or second language (Nicholson, 2013). The most widespread and well-known difference in theories of motivation is between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Dörnyei, 1994). The majority of activities that people perform are not intrinsically motivated (Ryan and Deci, 2000).
The importance of motivation for learning a foreign language was included as well as the theories of motivation regarding both educational psychology in general and LL specifically. The following chapter contains a presentation of the importance of using literature to teach a foreign language in the classroom.
Literature
- Literature in Language Learning
- Reasons for Using Literature in the Teaching Process
- Critical Skills …
- The Selection of Texts
- The Selection of Short Stories
- The Three Models in the Teaching of Literature
So the use of literature in the ELT class can be perceived as a strong pedagogical tool in the linguistic development of the students. Personal involvement: Literature is useful in the process of language learning because it involves the readers personally. Furthermore, they emphasize that the level of difficulty of the language should also be taken into account.
For this reason, the choice of literary texts should not be much above the reading ability of the students. After presenting the importance of using literature and more specifically short stories in English language teaching, the methodology used to complete the study follows.
Methodology
- Research Questions
- Participants
- Instruments
- The PET Test
- The Motivation Questionnaire
- The Teaching Literature Intervention
- Classroom observation
- Procedure
The same motivational questionnaire was used in the pre- and post-intervention phase. In this way, the presentation of the stories was more fun, away from the traditional presentation of reading passages that are included in the textbook for students. The teacher designed a special observation sheet (see Appendix H, pp. 108-109) to record student performance.
The students were first given the PET test and then the four scales of the motivational questionnaire (Parental encouragement, Attitude towards learning English, English anxiety and Language confidence). In the next chapter, the results of the PET test and the motivational questionnaire will be presented.
Results
- Motivation Results
- The Evaluation of the Learning Experience
- The Evaluation of the Learning Experience Questionnaire
- The Evaluation of the Learning Experience Questionnaire
- Language Test Results
- Classroom Observation
The means for each of the items of this category remained exactly the same. More specifically, the mean of the students' responses for the seventh item, which deals with how nervous and confused they are when speaking English in class, drops from 2.00 to 1.8. From the students' answers, an increase in the averages for these last items was noted.
The results of the first part of the questionnaire show that the students' favorite story was Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Meltdown after seven students drew four stars. The following tables show the means for both the overall scales (table 3) and their individual items (table 4) used in the second part of the questionnaire. The mean for interest in the English language is the lowest of the three categories (2.85).
The same average was shown in the seventh point which refers to the rhythm of the English language. Their means are relatively high indicating that students like English movies (M=3.8), TV programs (M=3.2) and English music (M=3.1). Table 5 shows the results of the PET test that the students completed before and after the intervention.
Furthermore, this engagement that the intervention produced continued after the completion of the five original lessons. The results of students' answers from the evaluation of the learning experience questionnaire are also included. Finally, the results of the Pet Test were presented in averages, showing an increase in the averages after the intervention, compared to those in the pre-test, indicating an improvement in the linguistic performance of the students.
Discussion
Attitudes to EFL Learning
- Analyzing the Possibility for the Reluctant and Less Motivated
Thus, the use of literature in the teaching process added interest to the lessons making it a source of enjoyable learning. Similar results about the students' attitudes regarding learning a foreign language were reported in Khatib and Askari's (2012) survey. This research was conducted among students at a university in Iran, showing positive changes in their attitudes after being taught using short stories.
The selection of the most appropriate text, which according to the students' responses was Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Meltdown, proved to be very meaningful to the students. This can be proven by the fact that when the original lessons were taught, students participated according to how much they liked the story they read. So, it is a great example of a girl whose performance in class is poor, who in most cases does not want to participate actively, as she knows her weaknesses in using the English language.
Nevertheless, when the lesson containing the short story "The Decision" was taught, which was her favorite, this girl was unusually active and eager to talk about the story and complete the tasks assigned to the class. This girl showed real interest in the text because she identified aspects of herself in the story as was clear from her responses. She wanted to express her feelings and similar experiences and ignore the fact that she had a poor vocabulary, something that prevented her from participating in other lessons.
There are other similar examples and this can be supported by the first part of the supplementary questionnaire where students chose their favorite story and also write about the elements they liked the most. In addition, answers were given to the question why some students did not participate actively or did not participate at all. For this reason, it can be said that the careful selection of texts that appeal to the majority of students can have positive effects on their performance.
Anxiety to EFL Learning
Linguistic Self-confidence
Critical Thinking
So the students formed their own interpretation of each of the stories and they exchanged their ideas with their classmates. They listened to the views of their classmates, patiently adding their own or disagreeing with each other when they held opposing beliefs. This is further supported by the poster project (see Appendix G, pp. 103-104), which the students completed in the last lesson.
They were divided into three teams and each had to write a story of those they taught during the intervention. They were asked to write down their thoughts, feelings, emotions or the overall impact the story had on them. They were not afraid to express their thoughts freely and were open to listening to different points of view, accepting that each of their fellow students may have a different interpretation.
Because of this, the posters include different statements that may not seem related to each other, but are feelings that the students experienced while reading the stories. The students' answers show their deeper understanding of the texts and their ability to read between the lines, find hidden messages and form personal opinions about the characters. Thus, some students think that Tom Sawyer is a "lying trickster" while others think that he is a "smart boy".
Furthermore, the students sympathized with the girl in the short story The Decision. For this story, students noted the importance of teachers encouraging their students and not reprimanding them, as this can have a negative effect on their willingness to learn and go to school in general. Teachers must encourage their students.” They even believed that the teacher's behavior towards the girl is a form of bullying in their poster "Stop bullying".
Students’ Performance in EFL
- General Comments
Teaching Implications
Limitations
If more scales had been included in the pre-questionnaire, the researcher would have had a deeper and clearer picture of the students' motivation in learning English. Answers have been provided to the questions asked at the beginning of the study. Finally, the implications that the results of the study may have in the classroom, as well as the limitations of the study, were included.
With this dissertation an attempt was made to investigate the usefulness of literature and more specifically short stories in teaching English. For the needs of the study, a motivation questionnaire was completed by the students before and after the literature intervention. Then they have to find out if they were their thoughts about the content of the book.
Then read the title and tell me what you think the content of the book is. T asks S to read the title of the short story The Decision. She then asks them to guess what this decision might be about and what kind of decisions teenagers have to make. For Ss to practice their writing skill .. understanding the text and add their interpretation.
From the names of the characters in the story, where does the story take place? Use the information from the table in the first exercise and also your answers in the third exercise to prepare a presentation of the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The T informs the Ss that they are to read an extract from the book 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and she asks them to guess some of them.
Role Play: The T's assign roles (narrator, Tom, Huck, policeman, 2 villagers, Aunt Polly, Injun Joe) to the S's to read the extract from the book. The T gives Ss a card with the title of the story they have been assigned. The following two pictures are the presentations that the students prepared in task 4 of the third Lesson Plan.
The next three pictures are of the students' drawings for task 6 of the first Lesson Plan.