Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Introduction

The teaching and learning of literature in English in the Malaysian English as a Second Language (ESL) context has evolved from being a core part of the school English language curriculum to a split in 1990 where the subject focused only on the language for communicational purposes excluding literature, while in upper secondary, the subject Literature in English was offered as an elective for those interested in taking it. In 1999, the Ministry of Education announced a significant change in English Language Teaching (ELT) policy. The Literature in English component was introduced in the year 2000 into the Form Four and Form One English Language syllabi with the aim of enhancing students' proficiency in the English language. Learners are expected to be able to follow a storyline and understand a poem and to give their own personal response to the text.

Contrary to beliefs and expectations, learners are often intimidated by the idea of learning literature because they think literature is about a lot of difficult and incomprehensible words (Doris Boo & Navinder Kaur, 2000). Often, to most of these learners, literature is synonymous with works of Shakespeare and his archaic or classic language, and works of poets with their unfamiliar language of poetry. Gwin (1990) claimed (in Nor Hasimah and Che Ton, 2012), these unusual stylistic devices often make comprehension near impossible. Deblase (2005) reveals students often struggle with Shakespeare’s language. Perhaps this holds true for learners in Malaysian secondary schools as the texts selected for use in literature classrooms are difficult for them to understand and enjoy especially poems.

Although poetry appreciation is one of the components of the Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah (KBSM) Literature in English programme, it is observed that a majority of the upper secondary students dislike and often shy away from poetry. A poem is usually not a favoured item for most ESL students mainly because of its “deviant use” (Widdowson, 1985, p.162) of language. For students, poetry is usually rated as making the least contribution to language skills development and they probably consider it as insignificant to any advancement in their studies or their future careers. This is the problem that needs to be addressed, arrested and rectified.

1.2       Statement of the Problem

Based on my professional experiences as a teacher, many students, however, are far from achieving these objectives in reading literary works, especially poems for several reasons. One glaring thing which even some teachers are unaware of is the role of literary competence. Sharminie and Kunaratnam (2009) support the research carried out by Carter and Long (1991) which shows that the study of literature is quite useless if the learner does not possess the literary competency and a certain degree of sophistication and familiarity with the particular cultural conventions as this will make learning the language a “laborious task” (p.24). Language proficiency alone is not sufficient for students to read, understand and appreciate literary works. In fact it is the inability to appreciate literary texts that keeps students away. Their knowledge of language, "would enable them to understand phrases and sentences, but they would not know, quite literally, what to make of [the] strange concatenation of phrases" found in literary texts (Brumfit, 1990). Thus, students would be unable to read it as literature because they lack the literary competence which enables others to proceed. This would later lead the students to feel bored and unmotivated in learning poetry.

1.3       Theoretical Framework

Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Model supports the notion of learning by doing. This  model  is  a  four-stage framework  that  encompasses  concrete  experience, reflective  observation,  abstract  conceptualization  and  active  experimentation.  With regard to this study, learners will undergo all four stepss that are integrated into the structure of instruction with the aim of increasing learners’ comprehension of the poems read and heightening their interesting and motivation to learn literature (Figure 1).

In the first stage of “forming abstract concept”, learners gain information by thinking about, analysing and planning their presentation. In their groups, they help each other to conceptualise something very abstract, that is, imagining the “picture” and “view” the poets have painted in their poems and the messages they want to convey. In this step, there is an active thinking process taking shape aimed at arousing learners’ curiosity as they begin to produce the drama.  The second stage is referred to as “active experimentation” or doing. In this step, learners transform the text into their own drama scripts. They assume active roles as readers and players, and rehearse their reading and acting.

The “concrete  experience” stage  in  the  Kolb’s  model  is  integral  to  drama  experience, where the learners are finally ready to perform. In concrete experience, they construct their own meaning of their learning. In the last step of “reflective observation”, the learners scrutinise their learning experience on two different levels. At one level, they self-evaluate the characters they act out (implicit / introspective). At another level, they also critique and evaluate their peers’ performance and the resulting learning (explicit / retrospective). At these two levels, learners assimilate information, reflect on their experience, construct new knowledge based on their existing knowledge, and analyse and evaluate the constructed knowledge. In this last step, learners are given the opportunity, based on their self-evaluation and peer-evaluation, to draw conclusions whether their learning had been successful or not. The above four stages will be incorporated into the procedures and design of this study.

1.4       Research Questions

In order  to  heighten learners’ interest  and  motivation  to  learn  literature, in this case poetry is highlighted,  learners should be engaged  in  an  experiential  learning  environment by the teacher  so  that they  are able  to  experience  learning  poetry  as  an  intellectual and enjoyable element.  To achieve this, teachers have to create  a  literature  classroom  with  rich, imaginative  and  critical  presence  among  students  (Rogers,  2006).  Based on Rosenblatt’s  (1978)  critical  engagement  theory,  which  concerns  aesthetics  and interpretation,  Rogers  (2006)  supports  Rosenblatt’s  beliefs  that “literary  teaching might be an exploration, that teachers may serve as guides, and that classrooms were democratic  microcosms  in  which  students  might  exercise  their  critical  reading  and thinking  skills” (p.  48). Based  on  critical  and  creative engagement  of  learners,  the  drama  approach is selected and structured as a classroom experiment with the aim of enhancing  language-learners’ interests  and  motivation  to  learn poetry.  The notion  of  this  research  is  to see  whether drama  can  be employed as  an  effective pedagogical  tool  to  increase  learners’ understanding  of  the  poems,  and  to increase learners’ interests and motivation to learn poetry. This study is aimed to answer the following research questions:

1.  What are the learners’ perceived comprehension levels of the poems before and after poetry learning through drama?

2.  What are the learners’ interest and motivation levels to learn poetry before and after poetry learning through drama?

1.5       Operational definitions

In this research, the term ‘drama’ will be used repeatedly. The term drama in this study will refer to the performing activities or drama techniques such as miming, role-playing, dramatization, simulation, improvisation as well as reader’s theatre.

1.6       Limitation

            The research will only be done to 60 Form One learners average age of 13) of 34 boys and 26 girls. They will be randomly selected from two advanced-level classes in a premier residential school, or MRSM Kuala Kubu Bharu that is located in Hulu Selangor, in the west of Peninsular Malaysia. This small sample size will not allow for the generalisation of findings to other contexts which will be the main limitation of this study. Nevertheless, teachers may benefit in terms of the learning experiences of using drama in classrooms and the processes and procedures of conducting drama in teaching poetry.

1.7       Significance of the Research

The aim of this study is firstly, to find out whether drama can enhance students’ comprehension, interest and motivation towards learning poetry, based on their early experiences with the genre. By focusing on the opportunities a teacher has in using poetry as a basis for language practice, it is hoped that this effort would help teachers to present poetry to students in a more meaningful and purposeful way. Carter and Long (1991), have put forward three tendencies in the utilization of literary texts in language classes, namely for personal growth, cultural awareness and language enrichment. As such, the approach and techniques in the teaching of poetry suggested in this study will not only focus on improving student performances in assessments but also on helping students to indulge in poetry for pleasure and motivation. Above all, the activities that will be explored in this study are aimed at encouraging teachers to select appealing literary works which students can identify with and by which they can linguistically and emotionally be stimulated (Vethamani, 1993) so that the chance of teaching-learning process being a responsive, enjoyable and fruitful one for all parties increases. This in itself would be a motivating factor for students who have usually found poetry a boring subject to study.