Teachers’ attitudes towards the use of literature in the teaching of english as a foreign language

Oleh :
George Chidiebere Iheanacho - S891008116 - Sekolah Pascasarjana

The objectives of this study are to explore and describe teachers’ attitudes towards the use of literature in the teaching of English as a foreign language and the factors that affect the teachers’ use and non-use of literature in the EFL classroom. The study is an attempt to explorethe seemingly sense of apprehension and non-use of literature in the EFL classroom and the fact that the success or failure of an educational material depends largely on the attitudes of teachers towards the material introduced or implemented. This research was conducted with 9 teachers in the department of English, Faculty of Letters and Fine Arts of Sebelas Maret University, Surkarta from September 2012 to February 2013. A qualitative phenomenological approach was employed and the data were taken via in-depth interview and non- participant observation. In analyzing the data, the descriptive phenomenological procedures of data analysis proposed by Parahoo (1997) were followed. The findings showed that (1) the teachers have a good knowledge of what constitutes literature and believed literature is a valuable resource for language teaching; (2) the teachers believed that literature offers linguistic, cultural and social values and that it enriches students’ vocabulary development, assist in internalizing the structure and grammar of the language and getting feelings of the language;(3) the majority of the teachers prefer prose to other genres because it is easier to the students and teachers in terms of language and themes; (4) the local (Indonesian) literature has not been effectively utilized because the teachers preferred literature written by native speakers as the best model for language teaching; and (5) even though the teachers seem to have positive attitudes to towards the use of literature as a valuable resource in language teaching, they still have not enthusiastically embraced literature for the purpose of teaching English.Three main factors were identified that affect teachers’ use and non- use of literature in the EFL. These are (1) teachers’ attitudes that literature is difficult to teach; (2) teachers’ lack of confidence to teach literature, and (3) students’ lack of motivation to read literature. It is therefore recommended that internal and external trainings are importantto equip teachers with the methodologies and approaches to use literature and to increase their confidence. Educational institutions should provide resources as well as encourage teachers to use other materials other than the conventional teaching materials in order to expose and improve students’language knowledge. By using literature in the EFL classroom, the students have many opportunities to enhance their linguistic, cultural and communicative competence.