Teaching English through Literature: Road to The Successful of
Genre-based Literacy In Indonesia
Denny Nugraha
English Language Teaching (ELT) Department 7Th Semester
The State Institute of Islamic Studies Syekh Nurjati Cirebon
Introduction
Genre-based literacy is widely known as a pedagogical approach in
the development of literacy based on the use of genre (text). Literacy itself
has a huge dimension of language use by means of critical textual study
particularly in reading and writing. Genre-based approach or in further called
by genre-based literacy concerns with how the critical study of text brings
into the classroom where language is being learned by the students. In
Indonesia, the approach based on the Competence-based Curriculum (KBK 2004) is
still now widely used to teach English as in the recent curriculum (KTSP 2006).
One of the goal of the approach is that students are able to show gratitude to
the literature. However, to promote English with the meaningful ness of
literature is not an easy task for English teachers in Indonesia considering
that there are still many of them who don’t know how to do with the approach. Therefore,
they must be well-prepared and fully understood first about some important
things before bringing it to their students.
Firstly, the purpose of teaching English through genre-based
approach is to create students who are functionally able to read, write, and
show their gratitude to literature. In line with this, Alwasilah (2014) stated
that teaching literature is commensurate with recognizing and valuing students’
subjective experience. By this way, students are encouraged to organize their
own experience through literature works guided by the teachers. However, it
cannot be likely that students are fully aware of the experience during reading
such literary works i.e., short stories, poetry, drama etc. They must fulfill
the requirement of the sense of enjoyment in literary reading. In addition, it
is also supported by the statement of Cope (1993) that literary reading skills
comprise reading for aesthetic purposes and enjoyment. The students’ experience
of aesthetic reading must be emerged first. Thus, this makes the teaching of
literature more challenging for English teachers.
Secondly, in the significance of literature as a part of teaching
English, English teachers must have the competencies or skills that strongly support
the teaching of literature. According to Alwasilah (2014), they are namely
literature attitude, literary reading skills, and literary teaching skills. Literature
attitude is a kind of evident among students in the number of literary works
read, written, and discussed in literature circles in the school and beyond. In
addition, literary circles have been defined as an alternative model of teaching
literature where the perspective is shifted from traditional text-centeredness
to reader-centeredness (Christie, 1990). Literary reading skills are skills
that comprise reading for aesthetic purposes and enjoyment. Then, literary
teaching skills are skills of creating literary engagements for aesthetic
appreciation which is emotionally pervasive through readers’ experiencing,
thinking, and feeling. Through these competencies, not only the teachers, but the
students can also feel engaged more to comprehend literary works and the
importances to the humanization.
Thirdly, reading and writing are the main skills to be mastered
when teachers utilizes literature to teach their students. Besides, students’
attitude towards literature primarily determines their interest to these skills
(Hyland, 2007). Teachers must have this attitude first before they start to
bring literary works in their class. In other words, they must promote to the
whole class that literature is a meaningful and joyful media to learn English.
This is emphasized by Alwasilah (2012) that the goal of teaching literature is
to develop the students’ textual awareness that every single literary work is a
unique creative work of a certain unique author. Therefore, the genre-based
approach will make sense if both students and teachers are aware of it.
Conclusion
There
are some important things as the requirements to be beared in mind of English
teachers in Indonesia. Teaching literature is not about delivering a simply
short story to students. It needs a considerable efforts to make it acceptable
for them in the context of learning language. The literary awareness must be
built by the teachers since that they are about to teach students with
different interests, potentials and backgrounds. They have to be ready mentally
and physically when they are in the classroom. Then the three
competencies-literary teaching, literary reading, and literature attitude-are a
set of priority for the teachers to promote literature in the classroom. So
that, the goal of genre-based approach in teaching English can work successfully
in order to increase the quality of literacy for students in Indonesia.
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